Forefront Leadership in Research, Service, & Community
The Environmental Law Clinic fights toxic chemicals in federal court and at the State House
12 Berkeley Law Transcript Fall 2020
Just after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Louisiana fisher Kindra Arnesen saw gobs “like a brassy-looking peanut butter” in the water near her Louisiana home. “It smelled like a mixture of petroleum products and death,” she wrote in a declaration submitted as part of a federal lawsuit. The goo came from Corexit, a widely used chemical sprayed to disperse oil after a spill — and broadly suspected of being dangerous to people and wildlife. Arnesen’s family has since been plagued with health problems, and she worries about cancer and other longer-term effects. Dispersants aren’t affecting just the oil-rich Gulf Coast. In her own declaration, Native Alaskan health worker and tribal organizer Rosemary Ahtuangaruak describes the impact the chemicals — which were used to clean up the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, among others — have had on the North Slope and surrounding areas. Native Alaskans eat a meat-heavy diet, she explained, and she’s concerned the healthy oils in that meat and fish might be compromised by the dispersants. “The Arctic is like a totem pole for contaminants,” she wrote in her declaration. “Contaminants from all over the world end up in the Arctic because of the wind, the ocean currents, and the animal migrations.” Both women are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed by Berkeley Law’s
U.S. AIR FORCE
A Deep Dive on Toxins
