I am a marine toxicologist, and I've been very, very concerned about the Gulf, particularly about the massive applications of the toxic dispersants, the Corexits. I've been working on ocean pollution for quite a long time -- the impacts on marine life and particularly the impacts on marine mammals. As it turns out, marine mammals are at the top of this food chain that we're pouring millions of tons of toxic substances into every year. And they are showing the signs of this. I'm sorry to have a sad slide like this, but not everything is all that happy, especially in my work. They are loaded with toxic chemicals in their body, hundreds of compounds, all kinds of compounds -- it's staggering. And they're dying off rather regularly, tens of thousands around the world. It's predicted they may go extinct -- about a third of them -- within about 30 years.
我是一名海洋生物毒理学家, 我一直对墨西哥湾原油泄漏事件非常担忧, 尤其是关于大量使用 有毒的分散剂 Corexit. 我在大洋污染方面 已经有多年的研究经验, 关于大洋污染对于海洋生物的影响, 特别是对于海洋哺乳动物的影响. 我们知道,海洋中的哺乳动物 在食物链的最顶端。 每年我们都向海洋 排放数以百万吨的 各种有毒物质, 而哺乳动物显示出了相关的迹象。 我很抱歉向各位展示这张幻灯片, 但事情不可能都如人意, 特别是我工作中遇到的事。 这些哺乳动物的体内 积累了大量的有毒化学物质, 有好几百种, 各种各样的化合物——非常惊人。 它们正因此成群成群地死去, 全世界范围内,以万为计。 预测显示这些动物很可能会灭绝。 其中的三分之一 将在30年内销声匿迹。
So my project is along the Northwest Atlantic. It's called Seals as Sentinels. We're tracking pollution at the top of the food web, in marine mammals and fish. It's a region-wide, eco-toxicological investigation. We're looking at a lot of compounds, but recently been quite interested in the flame retardants, the brominated flame retardants that are in many, many things that we use in our everyday life, from the cushions in the chairs we're all sitting on to the plastic casings of our computers, our television sets and so on. So we are tracking how do these things get from the products into the ocean, which is the final sink for them. And there's quite a complicated pathway for that because, as these products age, they get concentrated in dust, and then they also get thrown out, so they go to the landfills. They wind up in waste water treatment plants. As you all know, we throw out billions of computers and TVs every year. And those go to e-waste dumps. And all that gets into surface waters, eventually reaching the ocean, the final sink. So, in our study, we did find quite high levels, as we expected, of these flame retardants in the harbor seals' bodies. And we reported this. It led to a ban of this neuro-toxic flame retardant called Deca in Maine, where I am based, and also then a phase-out, U.S.-wide, at the end of last year. But we said, well, on the bright side, our harbor seals at least will not be bursting into flame anytime soon.
我的研究项目集中在大西洋的西北沿线, 名为:海豹哨兵。 我们在食物网的顶层, 比如海生哺乳动物或鱼类体内,追踪有毒物质。 这是一个大范围的 生态-毒物学的调查。 我们关注许多种化合物, 但最近我们的兴趣 集中在溴化物阻燃剂上。 这种阻燃剂在大量 日常用品中都有存在, 无论是被我们坐着的 椅子上的垫子, 还是电脑的塑料机箱, 抑或是电视机等等。 因此我们要追踪 这些有毒物质是如何 从日用品中最终流入大海 这个最后的污水槽的。 有毒物质的积累过程相当复杂, 因为当日用品老化时, 有毒物质就集中到了尘埃中。 当日用品最终被丢弃后,它们就被运到了垃圾填埋场, 最终集中到了污水处理厂。 众所周知,我们每年要报废 数十亿的电脑和电视机, 它们最终成为了电子垃圾。 而所有进入地表水系统的物质, 最终都会流向海洋。 因此,在我们的研究中, 我们意料之中地在斑海豹体内 发现了很高浓度的阻燃剂残留。 我们报告了这一结果, 最终使得这种叫做Deca的有神经毒性的阻燃剂 在缅因州被禁止使用,缅因州正是我的工作基地所在地。 随后到去年年底,这种物质在全美境内 也被逐渐禁止使用。 于是我们想至少从好的方面来看 这些斑海豹不会在短期内 烧起来。
So then I got really curious, myself, as a toxicologist, and I donated some blood to my lab and said, "Okay, let's do it." Well, we detected 113 different compounds in my blood. And I must say, if any of you would have this done, you'd probably find a similar profile, or cocktail, as they call it. But I was the recipient of a lot of flame retardant material for some reason. And just to point out the levels -- Americans have 10 to 40 times higher levels of these compounds in our bodies than the Europeans. Why? Because we are flame-retarding everything, and we have weak regulations for toxic chemicals. But lo and behold, I'm one of the high-end individuals. Lucky me. But then I thought, well, in case of a fire, I might be the last one to ignite.
于是我作为一个毒物学家 就(对我自己体内的化学物质)非常好奇, 所以我捐献了一点自己的血给实验室 然后说“好吧,让我们看看”。 结果我们在我的血液中监测到了 113种不同的化合物 而且我肯定,如果你们中间的一个也做同样的测试的话, 得到的一定是类似的结果, 我们称之为“鸡尾酒”。 但是,我被迫成为无辜的阻燃剂接受者 并非偶然。 现在来看看这个浓度—— 与欧洲人相比, 美国人体内这些化合物的含量 高出了10-40倍。 为什么呢?因为我们对各种东西都在阻燃, 而我们对于有毒物质的控制 还显得很薄弱。 但是你看,我还算是所谓的高端人才。 真是有幸。 然后我就想, 嗯,大概在火灾的时候,我会最后一个烧起来。
(Laughter)
(笑)
So anyway, here's the problem -- and it is a problem that we're looking at in the Gulf today -- we're not regulating chemicals in this country properly. We're hardly regulating them at all. And we're letting industry run the show. And Jackie Savitz spoke this morning about Big Oil and the propaganda and how we're all brainwashed with their, you know, lies and so forth. Well, Big Chemical is what we're dealing with here. And they're allowed to keep trade secrets, so they don't even give the ingredients out. Plus they don't give health and safety data, so, consequently, they cannot be regulated before they go to market. So it's a case of innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is not on the producer.
总之,现在有这样一个问题, 这也是我们在墨西哥湾关注的问题: 美国对于化学物质的管理还很不完善。 其实我们压根就没什么管理措施, 而是让市场决定了一切。 杰克 萨维茨(Jackie Cavitz)今天早上 作了一场关于大石油公司(Big Oil) 及其品牌宣传的演讲, 他谈到我们是如何被 种种谎言洗脑。 而我们今天要关注的 是大化工公司(Big Chemical) 他们被允许保留商业机密, 因此他们甚至无需公开原材料。 而且他们还不提供有关健康与安全的数据, 因此在这些产品真正上市之前, 它们根本无法被监控。 所以这就是“无证据即无罪”的情形, 而制造商根本没有提供证据的压力。
So I then was invited to go to the Gulf in May. I went down there on a preliminary investigation to look into dispersants and how they're going into the water column and so forth. And I was told that I was the only toxicologist to date who was dumb enough to get into the water, but I did. And we dove in the slick without even HazMat gear. And I did get sick. I got a ferocious sore throat two days later. I felt like my throat was on fire. But it did pass. And what I did see in the water as we went down, what really shocked me -- and it's haunted me ever since -- because I could see the droplets of oil dispersing. And as you go down, they're catching all kinds of plankton, bumping into, you know, little wisps of life that are the food for the planktivores, the herring kind of fish. And you could just see the web of death as you go down in the water column.
今年五月份, 我受邀去墨西哥湾。 我到那里去做一个 初步调查, 研究分散剂, 及它们如何流入水系。 人们说我是迄今为止 唯一一个笨到 去直接下水的毒物学家, 但我就这么做了。 我们在没有任何防护措施的情况下 潜入原油层下方。 我果然生病了。 两天以后我的喉咙就疼得厉害, 就好像它着火了一样, 好在最后还是恢复了。 而我在下潜过程中所见到的景象 着实把我惊呆了,而且始终挥之不去。 我看见原油分散成小滴, 在下降过程中黏附上各种浮游生物, 和那些千丝万缕的、漂浮的生命体, 碰撞在一起, 成为以浮游生物为生的其它动物的食物, 比如鲱鱼类。 随着你逐渐下潜, 你可以直接看到整个死亡网络。
Well, you know, we got into this in the beginning as a trade-off, they say, between the wetlands versus the ocean depth. And I didn't agree with that decision at the time; I still don't. The decision was to protect the marshes. When the oil gets into the marshes, you can't get it out. And as you know, there's been a very weak response, up until recently, to actually collect the oil. It's gotten much more aggressive. This is an Exxon slide showing what happens, the scenario and the trade-off. So this shows oil on the surface. You can see it getting up into the mangrove, but it is not harming the corals or the sea grass, right. So here we have the other scenario. If you disperse, the sea grass and the corals are getting hit pretty hard, but you're saving the mangrove. So this, to me, is like going to the eye doctor, okay? Is it better with one or two?
当然,那些专家说, 我们之所以会在海中看到这些景象, 是因为我们不得不在湿地 和深海之间权衡取舍。 我当时并不同意这个决定, 今天我依然这么认为。 这个决定的本意是要保护海边的湿地, 因为一旦原油进入湿地,就没法再弄出来了。 而我们也知道,直到最近, 残油的收集工作 依然进行得很少。 现在这个情况越来越严重了。 这张幻灯片显示了瓦迪兹号事件的 情形以及得失。 这里显示的是海面上的油污。 你可以看到油污进入了红树林, 但是还没有侵害到珊瑚礁, 或者是海草。 现在我们看另一种情况。 如果你分散油污,海草和珊瑚礁 会受到很大的侵害, 但是你却保住了红树林。 对我来说这就像是去看眼科医生。 是一只眼睛好还是两只好?
(Laughter)
(笑)
The problem is that we have released so darn much of this stuff, we're climbing up to two million gallons very quickly. And then there's the problem of the plumes. What plumes? It turns out there are plumes. Independent researchers found that. And then there's the looming, messy problem of human health, reported human health effects. And actually, one of our federal officials said that it was probably heat stress. So ... Having been in that water just for the short time I was there, I can tell you, it is not heat stress. There are volumes of volatile petroleum fumes coming off that water, plus the Corexit, which has solvent in it. So it is not at all rational.
现在的问题是 我们在很短的时间内, 排放了太多的这类物质, 将近200加仑。 然后我们还有分散油柱的问题。 起先他们试图否认:什么羽毛?(“分散油柱”plume也有羽毛的意思) 事实上分散油柱确实存在。 是一些独立研究者们发现的。 另外还有不断迫近的 各种棘手的有关人类健康的问题, 各种关于人类健康影响的报道。 事实上,我们的一个联邦政府官员解释说 这很可能是热应力。我很无奈。 作为到过那片水域的人, 尽管时间相对很短, 我可以告诉各位,这绝非单纯热应力的缘故。 那里有大量的易挥发的 石油烟气从水面上蒸腾而出, 在加上 含有有机溶剂的Corexit 这个情况非常糟糕。
So what do we have? The BP show is going on. Our officials complained about Corexit, which is the most toxic line of dispersants. But heck, they're still using it, and they used the most toxic one, the 9527, until they ran out of supplies. Now they're on 9500. 9527 had 2-butoxyethanol in it that causes internal bleeding. We know that from the Exxon Valdez spill, by the way. So what we're doing, we're putting compounds with petroleum solvents onto a petroleum spill. Does this make sense? So this is the way it works. And I want to show you this cute little thing that happens here. It's a micelle. Micelles form around the oil. And what happens first is the solvents break into the oil, the lipid membrane, they let the surfactants in there. The surfactants -- which are like things we use on fast food wrappers -- they grab around the droplets of oil, and they make little, tiny droplets with nice, little surfactant edges to them. The thing to remember about the micelles -- these little floating globules of toxin -- is they are there to deliver. They're like the FedEx guys. And if you're a fish, and you haven't gotten your glob in the morning, you're going to get it in the afternoon, because they've got your number.
所以我们现在怎么办?BP仍然在演戏。 我们的官员一边指责Corexit 这种在所有的分散剂中 毒性最强烈的物质。 一边却继续使用Corexit, 而且还是毒性最大的9527号, 直到9527号断货。 现在他们使用9500号。 9527号含有乙二醇单丁醚, 它会导致内出血。 顺便提一句,这一点我们也是从瓦迪兹号事件中了解到的。 因此我们所做的就是把溶解于石油成分溶剂的 化合物投放到石油泄漏物中去。 这一切有道理吗? 但这就是事实。 我想给你们看一下这里发生的一个有趣的小现象。 这是一个胶束, 通常在油滴外围形成。 首先发生的是 溶剂进入了油滴的 脂质膜层, 然后留下了表面活性剂。 表面活性剂 - 就是我们 涂在食物包装纸上的东西 - 能够抓住油滴, 从而在细小的油滴外 形成薄薄的 表面活性剂层。 关于胶束我们要注意的是 - 这些小小的漂浮的 含有毒物的小液滴, 就是这些胶束在运送的东西。 它们就像联邦快递。 如果你是一条鱼, 就算你早上有幸没撞上这团东西, 那你晚上就该撞上了。你在劫难逃。 它们盯上你了。
So from a toxicology perspective, this is really awful because Corexit and the dispersed oil are much more toxic together than either alone. And usually the exposure is a combined exposure. The dispersants -- as I was saying -- their job is to break down the lipid membrane. The solvents in them do that very efficiently. So they break down lipid membranes in our body, starting with cells of the skin, the cells of organs. So it actually hastens oil getting into the body easily and readily. Oil contains hundreds of hydrocarbon compounds and other compounds that are toxic to every organ in the body. And so with the dispersants combined, you have this very synergistic combined toxicity. Corexit also contains petroleum solvents and many other toxic compounds. And I'm part of a chat group, which is a national group of toxicologists and chemists that are, you know, basically turning cartwheels trying to figure out what's in this stuff, and what is it doing and what are the interactions of these chemicals, most of which we don't know, and what are their byproducts, which are usually more toxic than the parent compound. So we did find that Corexit 9500 contains heavy metals, arsenic and chromium -- arsenic at high enough levels to have cancer-causing effects.
所以从毒物学的角度来看, 这是非常可怕的情形, 因为当Corexit遇上分散的原油, 它们的毒性 有增无减。 而生物一般都是 同时暴露在这两种物质之下。 我前面提到过,分散剂的作用 就是分解破坏 脂质的外膜。 分散剂中含有的溶剂很容易就能做到这一点。 于是它们也分解了 我们体内的脂质薄膜, 从我们的皮肤细胞开始, 一直到其它器官的细胞。 因此它事实上是加快了 原油进入我们体内的速度, 使之变得更快更易。 原油含有数百种碳氢化合物 以及其它对我们体内 任何器官都有害的化学成分。 因此当它们与分散剂结合后, 就形成了一种强大的 协同作战的有毒物质。 Corexit也含有石油溶剂 以及许多其它的有毒化合物。 我个人是一个全国性的 由毒物学家和化学家组成的 讨论团体的一员, 而我们主要做的就是 想方设法去找出这些化合物里究竟有些什么, 它们有什么作用,它们互相之间 有什么反应——我们对此知之甚少—— 还有就是它们有哪些副产品, 而这些副产品往往比原来的化合物更有毒性。 我们确实在Corexit 9500中 发现了重金属、砷、还有铬, 其中砷的含量高到 足以诱发癌症。
So this is what we have to look at, these, you know, ridiculous safety data sheets, which have nothing on them much. And now they were forced to release the ultimate list of everything that's in Corexit. And guess what, tons of stuff is missing. Derivatives, derivatives, these are whole big groups of many, many compounds, these sorbitans. And then you get down to the petroleum distillates, which are the solvents, hundreds of them. They are not identified. And why? Trade secrets again. BP's running the show, and the Nalco company, this is all they have to do. So far these ingredients have not been released, and toxicologists are actually going nuts because we cannot predict with certainty what the interactions and toxic results are going to be.
这就是我们所看到的 这些荒谬可笑的产品安全列表。 它们对我之前讲的那部分内容只字未提。 现在最终的产品安全报告被迫公布, 列出了Corexit所含有的全部成分。 你猜怎么样, 很多东西都被略去了。 衍生物、衍生物……这些都是许多许多化合物 构成的大类,比如山梨醇。 然后你看到石油的蒸馏成分, 也就是溶剂, 有好几百种。 它们都没有在报告中被“检测”出。为什么? 又是所谓的贸易机密。 BP正在上演一场戏, 还有Nalco公司。它们只要演演戏就好了 。 到目前为止有关这些成分的信息还没有被公布, 而我们这些毒物学家简直要发疯了, 因为这样我们就不能准确地判断出 有哪些反应在进行, 以及它们的危害有多大。
But we do have quite a lot at risk down there, as we all know, the 33 wildlife refuges, so much wildlife and fish and diversity. So we know from previous spills. And then part of this is just part of my bad dreams. And I appreciate being able to vent some of my anguish upon you. What we do know is that the corals are going to get hit hard. And this is a study that was done on the Australian coast, the coast of Tasmania. Corals are, you know, the home to about a quarter of all marine species. And with the Corexit and the oil, there's zero percent fertilization. With oil alone, there's 98 percent fertilization. So they're a very sensitive species to this combo.
但我们手上有那么多岌岌可危的问题, 我们都很清楚, 33个野生动物避难所。 那么多野生动物、鱼类、 以及生物多样性。 我们从之前的原油泄漏事件中已经有了经验。 这一切都是我晚上 噩梦的根源。 我觉得很欣慰 我能在这里和你们说说 我的各种担忧。 我们目前能够确定的是珊瑚礁会遭到重创。 这是在澳大利亚的 塔斯马尼亚海岸 所做的研究调查。 众所周知 ,珊瑚礁是 大约四分之一海洋生物的家。 现在因为Corexit, 因为泄露的原油, 它们的繁殖率,归零。 如果只有原油,倒还有98%的繁殖率。 它们根本无法承受 这个“Corexit石油大礼包”。
Here's another group. I could see myself easily in the water column. The plankton and the plankton eaters, you know, these are the little herring fish that go through the water column with their mouths open, feeding indiscriminately and just lapping up this brown pudding of toxic stuff. And we do know from other studies that this is a highly toxic mixture. See the oil and Corexit is causing death at a much, much lower dose than oil alone. That's probably as far as what we do know about toxic effects. But my bad dreams go like this. The piscivorous fish, the cobia, grouper, amberjacks, those big fish, also the tuna and sharks, are going to hit by this. And the gills are quite sensitive. The respiratory system is very sensitive. Think about it with the Corexit hitting the membranes, and it will clog up the gills, and then these animals are going to be getting something like what you call chemical pneumonia, trying to aspirate the compounds. It also will cause internal bleeding upon ingestion. I'm very worried about the air-breathing mammals because I study them, but also, the way their going to be exposed is every time they come to the surface to take a breath, they're going to inhale these volatile fumes. And what does happen with that eventually is pneumonia sets in and liver, kidney, brain damage. The Corexit is transporting the oil into every membrane and every system of the body. And you're having a lot of different unpleasant effects, but burns to the eyes and mouth, skin ulcers, lesions. And I think, personally, that we have not begun to see the impacts of this spill on the wildlife of the Gulf.
还有一个例子。 我能够在水柱中清晰地看到我自己。 浮游生物和食用浮游生物的动物, ——比如这些张着嘴巴 在水柱中游动的小鲱鱼—— 它们无力分辨, 照单全收,包括 这些剧毒的棕色“布丁”。 而我们从其它调查中得知, 这是一种剧毒的混合物。 原油和Corexit加在一起, 只需要比单纯原油泄漏少太多的量 就能导致大量生物死亡。 这大概就是我们所确定的 全部关于这些毒物的信息。 但是我的噩梦还在继续。 那些食用鱼类的鱼, 比如军曹鱼、石斑鱼、琥珀鱼, 还有大型鱼类,比如金枪鱼和鲨鱼, 都会被影响到。 鱼的鳃是很敏感的器官。 整个呼吸系统都很敏感。 让我们想象一下 Corexit遇到粘膜以后的情况。 它会阻塞鱼的鳃, 然后这些动物就会 得一种类似于被你们叫做 化学性肺炎的病, 因为它们在尝试吸出这些东西。 它还会造成消化系统的 内出血。 我对于直接呼吸空气的动物很是担忧,因为它们是我的研究对象。 每当它们浮到海面 试图呼吸的时候, 它们就会被暴露在这些易挥发的烟气里。 而这些最终导致的 就是肺炎, 还有肝、肾、以及脑部的损伤。 Corexit这种物质 会把原油传输到 身体中的每一层隔膜 和每一个系统。 然后你就会出现 许多不适症状, 比如眼睛和嘴部的灼烧感 皮肤溃疡等病变。 而且我个人认为 我们还没有看到 这次原油泄漏对于墨西哥湾的 野生动物们的影响
We started hypothesizing: what do we know? what do with think would be a trophic cascade? which means that somebody gets wiped out, and then everything above that's eating those guys will crash. So our thought was -- this is a simple thinking process, but ... obviously the plankton, the planktivores, and that's about as far as we got. And then it turns out we're not very good at figuring this stuff out. This is what the Exxon Valdez scientists thought would happen, this trophic cascade where you lose the kelp and the herring and other fishes and going up. They thought that eventually the killer whale would be at the top of this cascade. And then here's what really happened, much more complicated, much more specific. Actually the kelp and the barnacles that attach to the rock were decimated by the combination of Corexit and the oil. They were replaced by invasive species, which had less holding power to the rock. Storms came along. They ripped out of the rock. And this was the entire food web for the sea ducks. And as you know, we lost about 300,000 sea ducks from the Exxon Valdez spill, and they haven't come back.
我们不禁开始猜测: 我们究竟对事实知道多少? 什么又会造成食物链崩溃? 即当一个生物消失之后, 它食物链中的所有上级生物 都会一起消亡的现象。 我们的想法 是一个很简单的构想 但至少 会包括浮游生物和吃浮游生物的其它生物 目前我们就到这一步 并且我们发现我们对这些内容搞得不是很清楚。 这是关于瓦迪兹号事件的科学家的假想。 食物链崩溃会从 海草和青鱼开始, 然后不断向食物链上级发展。 他们认为虎鲸 会是这场崩溃的最终受害者。 然后事实是怎么样的呢? 真实的情况更加复杂,更加具体。 那些依附于石头上的 海草以及藤壶首当其冲, 大批牺牲于 Corexit和原油的混合物。 然后他们被入侵生物所取代 而这些新物种对于岩石的附着力比较弱 一旦风暴袭来 它们就会从岩石上脱落 而它们恰恰是海鸭所赖以生存的食物 大约三十万只海鸭 在瓦迪兹事件中丧生, 而它们的数量至今还没有恢复。
So we are launching an independent study. And by independent, I do not mean alone; I mean independent in the sense of not tied to the kind of crime-scene secrecy that's going on in the Gulf now. But we are actually going to be assessing toxic impacts, but we need lots and lots of partners to do this intelligently. We have some of the partners lined up. And Dave Gallo signed on. Sylvia's in here. And we hope that some of you will help us. My question to you is: why shouldn't we know? Don't we have the right to know? Surely we have the right to learn what loss we are going through in the Gulf. And my wish would be -- for the gulf prize -- would be that we have the truth. Whatever it is, please let us have the truth. And to get there, we need to do the assessment.
因此我们开始了 一项独立研究。 独立并不意味着独自完成 我所说的独立是指 我们和墨西哥湾 那群试图掩盖罪行的人 没有任何利害关系。 我们会评估毒物所造成的影响, 但是我们需要非常多的合作伙伴 来交出一份有说服力的报告。 已经有一些人表明了合作的意向。 戴夫 加罗也是其中一员 还有塞维娅。 我们也希望你们中间会有人来帮助我们 我们的问题是:为什么我们不能知道? 是我们没有知道的权利吗? 显然不是。我们有权利知道 墨西哥湾究竟遭受了怎样的损失 我的希望是 对于墨西哥湾事件的希望是: 我们能够了解真相。 无论真相是什么,至少,请让我们了解它。 为了达到这一目标, 我们需要做更详尽的评估。
So I appreciate being here. Thank you.
很荣幸能在这里发言。谢谢!
(Applause)
(鼓掌)