BP is using a chemical dispersant, Corexit, supposedly to break up the oil so bacteria can eat it faster. This is not what is happening. It is causing the oil to sink out of sight to relieve pressure on the company, but may be causing far more damage than the spill otherwise would.
Environmental engineer Joe Taylor has a dire warning for BP: they have to stop using their chemical dispersant, Corexit, immediately. Or else, according to a report from WKRG in Mobile, everything is going to die!
He says the sulfur and sulfuric acid based dispersant makes the oil spewing into the gulf sink, where its impossible to clean up--and where it depletes oxygen levels under the water, killing plankton and everything above plankton in the food chain. "Corexit is toxic, petroleum is toxic, and its depleting the oxygen levels," he says.
What's worse says Taylor, is that if he knows this information, so does BP. "They have a lot of chemists who are a lot smarter than I am, and they know this," he says.
BP's use of a toxic dispersant to break up oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico will cause worse long-term damage to the ecosystem than had the company allowed the spill to reach coastal shorelines, contends a group of oystermen suing the petroleum corporation.
Environmental scientists are concerned that the 30 per cent of dispersants used deep below the surface may have helped to create and stabilise poisonous "plumes" or "clouds" of oil droplets that are now finely dispersed through the deep waters of the gulf.
BP's interest is only in getting the oil out of sight. It is unclear whether the government - who didn't even require BP to put flow gauges down there until more than 50 days had passed - is on top of this. When the EPA ordered BP to use a less toxic dispersant, BP just said NO,
It was not clear how the environmental agency would enforce the demand that BP reduce its use of the dispersant.
"We are continuing to use Corexit while we're still working with E.P.A. on alternatives," Mark Salt, a spokesman for the oil company, said by telephone from Texas on Monday morning. Asked Monday evening about the request that the company at least reduce its use of the Corexit dispersant, he said he had not heard about the proposal and added, "Again, We're still working closely with EPA."
The Wall Street Journal this week, Slippery Start: U.S. Response to Spill Falters,
According to EPA data, one dispersant, Corexit 9500, is especially toxic to the shrimp and fish used in tests. But it was available in large quantities, so that's what BP was using.
On May 10, with the boom and berm plans foundering, Ms. Jackson met about 25 Louisiana State University scientists to discuss the spill. Most of the scientists urged her not to let BP spray dispersants directly at the leaking well without more research, recalls Robert Carney, one of the LSU professors. Ms. Jackson responded that the EPA was "under extreme pressure from BP" to approve the move, Mr. Carney recalls. An EPA official confirmed Ms. Jackson met with the LSU scientists.
Five days later, the EPA said it would let BP spray the dispersant on the wellhead.
As bad as this spill is, we must not allow BP to make it worse in a corporate cover-up effort to hide the damage they have done.
