Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
BP Told to Use Less Toxic Dispersant in Oil Spill: Report
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government Thursday ordered BP to use a less toxic dispersant on the expanding Gulf of Mexico oil slick, as fears mount over the scale of the environmental disaster off the southern coast.
The crew of a Basler BT-67 fixed wing aircraft release oil dispersant over an oil discharge from the mobile offshore drilling unit, Deepwater Horizon, off the shore of Louisiana, in this May 5, 2010 photograph. (REUTERS/Stephen Lehmann/U.S. Coast Guard/handout)
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave the British oil giant 24 hours to identify a new dispersant and a further 72 hours to start using it to break up the slick.
"If BP is unable to identify available alternative dispersant products, BP must provide the Coast Guard and EPA with a detailed description of the alternative dispersants investigated, and the reason they believe those products did not meet the required standards," the agency said in a statement.
The dispersant being used by BP on and under the water in the area of the ruptured Gulf oil well is currently on a US government approved list, but the EPA expressed concern about its use in "unprecedented volumes."
"We reserve the right to discontinue the use of this dispersant method if any negative impacts on the environment outweigh the benefits," EPA said in a statement.
The Washington Post earlier reported that BP had been using two types of dispersants, called Corexit 9500A and Corexit 9527A, with 600,000 gallons used on the surface and 55,000 underwater.
On Friday, US officials approved the use of the controversial subsea chemical dispersants after a team of experts analyzed the results of three tests of their use.
"This was not a decision that was made lightly," said US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry.
The dispersant effort is meant to break down the oil so that, over time, the slick is reduced to smaller particles that biodegrade instead of being left as chunky, thick globs that can choke both wildlife and vegetation.
But environmentalists, scientists and fisherman have raised concerns that the dispersants could be creating a toxic soup in critical habitats and simply shifting the damage from the oil out of sight.
75 Comments so far
Show All"But environmentalists, scientists and fisherman have raised concerns that the dispersants could be creating a toxic soup in critical habitats and simply shifting the damage from the oil out of sight."
Could be creating a toxic soup? Hel-freakin-lo! Could be? Could be! Is there anybody in there!
People's lives all across the Gulf of Mexico are going to be R U I N E D! Perhaps for-ever! And some daft bastards are saying the dispersants and how about the oil, could be creating a toxic soup?
God help us!
camus13
Can Bush really be worst than Oilbama? This man is a idiot.
He held up the photos of the leak for weeks, he has the best ship in the NOAA fleet off the coast of Africa and made them change their report on the blob of oil.
His is standard OP COVER HIS ASS and Lie Lie Lie
I bet he is still for deep water drilling and nuclear plants.
He as fooled many many people but it is past time we stand up and call this clown just what he is. A self-seeker who only cares for one thing. Himself.
I notice he as partying again last night but made sure none of the common folk crashed.
"Can Bush really be worst than Oilbama?"
Does it matter? These two useless tools are the best that the owners of this country would allow into the white house. When Oilbama leaves the white house in 2012, he will only be replaced by another worthless corporate tool. Our founding fathers worked hard building a system of diffused power, and it worked for a while, but they never understood how dangerous corporate power was and they never did anything to guard against it.
The reason I love reading Commondreams is the readers comments... especially regarding this oil disaster. No one else is talking about it. HUSH HUSH. Here we share our feelings - anger, grief, dispair. I love how the best scientific minds are now working on this... where were they a month ago? Anyway, I am part of the problem as I still drive my gas car. So sad.
Hi leafygreens,
You can probably be forgiven for driving a gas-powered car for a little bit longer. Just as long as you aren't driving 100 miles to shop at the Mall of America or such like. :)
There's another website that I've been lurking on for news and views about the oil spill. The Oil Drum is more technically oriented and a bit more red-necky than CD. But a lot of good info is being generated there. And the BS meter doesn't seem to be running off the charts. http://www.theoildrum.com/
Another surprisingly informative site is Dr. Jeff Masters' blog at the WeatherUnderground site: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html
Thanks for joining the conversation.
Firedoglake has had the best coverage by far, since it began.
Nola.com is also doing good work: http://videos.nola.com/times-picayune/2010/05/oil_spill_video_times-picayune_5.html
***
I might, with trepidation, suggest that I don't concur with your assessment of FireDogLake's coverage of the spill. Oh, I'm sure they are doing a fine job on reporting on and analyzing the politics of the situation, but I do recall in the very earliest days of the incident coverage (around April 25) there was an item posted by someone who clearly had no technical background whatsoever who was offering half a dozen different speculations on what had happened. All of which were pure nonsense. From my 25 years experience in the construction industry I could tell that the FDL lead writer was completely out of his depth. Just sayin'....
hush hush............ quite right. there is nothing in the headlines of the bbc or sky news about this. (two of the many msm british bullshit news sources)
Time for everyone to just stop? I mean - what does humanity do? Just get the latest Steve Jobs invention and keep going? 5 years from now, what is humanity's collective mission?
I think #1 it's to put down the nukes - noble goal, but how to enforce when nutjobs have weapons to destroy the planet? And by that I mean Oil Rigs and Nukes - both have the same long term consequence of human + other extinction.
So yes, grow food at home. Set up rainwater catchment systems. Maybe find a penpal in North Korea or Iran - do something to build bridges - because divisions over power, money, fuel, food, and general future options for various kingdoms around the planet will only continue to get more complex.
Social breakdown can happen fast - your calendar won't matter if full scale nuclear war breaks out. So make it matter right now?
I am a city dweller but still went out and planted crops outside the city - time to reform the education system to get people growing real food instead of the 75,000,000 that fake farm every month playing FarmVille?
Are we that retarded?
Don't worry!!! even before the gushing oil has been stopped, Obama has found the solution!! He is reorganizing the bureaucracy!! And as for the toxic dispersants, Of course when the government okayed them, that was before they were taking their job to protect the environment seriously!!!
During the Bush years we we treated to such gems as: "who knew hurricanes would breach the levees???" and
"who could have known Osama was determined to use planes to strike America???"
now you've got: "who knew there was ever going to be an oil spill???"
Don't be too hard on your current dear leader, Obama, though, after all he still must spend half his time taking bribes from companies like BP, here, so give him some slack when it looks like he has other priorities than doing his job. After all, ties to oil companies and Goldman Sachs aside, Obama is still secretly a progressive!!! He thinks seven moves ahead!!!
"He thinks seven moves ahead!"
Then he's trying too hard to outwit the body public.
The finest chess players in the world, even those who can play multiple games simultaneously, don't think more than two or three moves ahead. If they think too far ahead, they get tied up in possibilities, and fall to simple strategies they overlooked.
Which is where Obama is headed...
This monster has been running amok for one month as of today.
BP is the only entity in charge, as even the US Government stands by the wayside wringing it's hands in nervousness, not wanting to upset the criminal Corporate supercitizen.
Every technology BP has tried to re-cage this monster has either failed or resulted in telegenic half measures. But the MSM is dressed in it's best cheerleader slut costume tells us that we must trust the very people who loosed this abomination on the world to be the ones who will eventually contain it once again.
Who wants to bet money that BP's incredibly toxic dispersant agent is itself made from oil? Anyone? No?
When you have a government held captive and beholden to large business and Corporations, you no longer have a Democracy.
Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
And with the first wave of Tea Party politicians elected, you can bet you ass you're about to get a home grown version of goose stepping, book burning, intolerant morons running things.
Doesn't BP have something to do with the manufacture of corexit?
Yeah, those dispersants can't be good. The word itself -- dispersants -- implies that they simply act to disperse the oil, not eliminate it. What good does that do? So, in addition to the oil, you have these other chemicals in the ocean. None of this shit is natural, none of it belongs in the ocean.
Apparently George Bush was wrong when he said, "I know that the human being and fish can co-exist peacefully."
"The word itself -- dispersants -- implies that they simply act to disperse the oil, not eliminate it. What good does that do?"
The dispersants hide the oil under the surface so the surface slick looks smaller. They use the size of the surface slick to make estimates of the spill size. That lets them lie about the size of the disaster.
By the EPA first officially approving the use of the dispersant then telling BP to find a less harmful alternative days later the Obama/DLC administration has given BP a free pass when all this goes to court. No one is stupid here. The Obama/DLC/corporate administration just covered BP's butt on purpose and in writing. They just gave BP something to argue in court.
The Obama/DLC administration has done the same by not allowing independent testing to determine the rate of the flow. The rate of flow will be needed at some point to asses damages. You will see some real "he said, she said" finger pointing when the amount of oil leaked into the gulf needs to be determined to calculate damages in court. Obama is giving BP an out as we speak. Lawyers will be arguing over how much oil was leaked for the next 20 years. Thanks DLC Obama.
Un-freaking-believable! I totally agree with your statements.
What you have said is true. They just gave BP something to argue in court.
..BUT.. I am so glad they have stopped the use of toxic dispersant. I just dont know how much damage that would have done.
..AND.. BP's legal liability, at the end of the day, is just $75million. Despite their rhetoric, they have not thrown their legal liability cap away, and despite Obama's rhetoric, they have not had it taken from them. They will actually pay more than that in legal fees alone, but in 5 years time, when court appeals are still going, when people have forgotten to be angry, they WILL use it.
They haven't stopped the use, but have given BP time to choose another toxic dispersant.
when obama said it doesnt matter how much oil is leaking we just need to stop it, in that moment I knew he was covering for them. as far as stupid statments a pres has said..."it doesn't matter how much oil" ranks up there with any lie bush told.
I was never really big on obama..but I didn't see him as a bush clone until now.
Even msnbc is calling him out now.
It's a given that manunkind is the sole producer and distributor of the one toxin capable of destroying a planetary ecosystem: intellectual hubris.
Little non-technical me scratched my head when I first heard that "dispersants" were being used as part of the solution to Mother Earth's torn artery. Isn't "dispersing" the gusher's output exactly what they're trying to STOP?
Then a fellow commenter-- can't remember who at the moment-- kindly clued me in to the concept that dispersants theoretically dissolve or atomize cohesive clumps of petrochemicals and render them "biodegradable".
I'M using the term "theoretically", but I'm sure that scientists claim that the properties of dispersants are facts, not theories; I also presume that such dispersants have a history of being successfully deployed to reduce or eliminate negative environmental effects of unplanned petrochemical discharges.
So I have a new question: have these vaunted "dispersants" ever been investigated using a Gulf of Mexico-size test tube?
PBS science shows need to be taken with a grain of salt (or a smidgen of dispersant), but if the planet survives long enough, I can easily see a NOVA, or the ubiquitous Alan Alda, showcasing research with narration like, "... at the time, the scientific consensus was that dispersants effectively 'broke down' the petrochemicals, thus rendering the chemicals 'biodegradable'; however..."
I don't know what the "however" may prove to be, and maybe if we're really lucky Murphy's Law won't kick in any more than it already has.
But I have a bad feeling that using the remedy of dispersants on this scale is far more experimental than it's being made to sound, and it will turn out to be one of those fixes that just shifts the dire problem to other levels and domains.
The name of the dispersant is a pun on "Corrects it". Scientists have commented that the chemical is poorly named. It ought to have been called "Hides it". Use enough of this stuff, and the grease slick wont come on your shore. There is a saying:- "If a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is there to witness it, did it really happen?" In this case, my answer is no, for BP nothing will have happened.
But for the ocean and for the planet as a whole, something dreadful happened. The grease slick will have poisoned a far greater volume of water instead, poisoning coral, fish, the plankton that creates the world's oxygen, etc. Oh, ..., and of course, the dispersant itself is highly toxic, probably doing more damage than the dissolved grease itself.
Out of sight, out of mind!
Yikes.
We, the people of the earth and water, have yet to hear an apology.
As a sympathetic Canadian observer, I wonder if Bin Laden is laughing at BP screwing over America the same way Iraq and Afghanistan were screwed over in the interest of Big Oil. What tragic irony. Of course, our Prick in Residence, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is just as subservient to his Oily Masters in Calgary, and the earth suffers as a result.
Stephen Harper (Bush's Mini Me) is already getting plenty of heat for even considering allowing a Shell Oil 'test spill' in the Arctic to determine Canada's emergency response capabilities to such an event.
Inuit elders and chiefs are reportedly up in arms, threatening dire consequences if the proposed test is carried out.
And here I thought Mini Me was Tony Blair.
Please, not another oops moment.
They need new writers.
CBS journalists were stopped from covering and photographing the oil spill and threatened with arrest by the Coast Guard under orders from BP. Who's running our government?
"CBS journalists were stopped from covering and photographing the oil spill and threatened with arrest by the Coast Guard under orders from BP. Who's running our government?"
Do you really have to ask?
Big Prother.
Q "Big Prother."
That's great!
According to this, it's 'raining' oil in Florida.
http://earthboppin.net/talkshop/geology/messages/12984.html
If true, this means that oil from the blowout is evaporating from the ocean and condensing to fall as petrochemical precipitation hundreds of miles from the catastrophe in the Gulf.
This should make hurricane season *REALLY* interesting...
Sioux Rose
GALEN: I live about 100 miles north of the guy who wrote the post you referenced, and it's about to rain here. My car is underneath the carport, but I almost wonder if I should cover my plants? More dangerous than the oil could be the emulsifiers if they end up airborne. All kinds of unknown factors have been let loose, an ominous parallel with the article on the geneticist who thinks he can now play god with genes... each day makes me wonder if the Mayans will turn out to be right.
DROSERA: Just for you I will put out a pot to see if the rain comes down with oil in it. Honoring the scientific method, I will report back to you with my findings.
I know it is a little off topic, but when I think of the financial mess, the oil geyser and many other things, this quote from "Great Gatsby" keeps coming to mind. F. Scott Fitzgerald saw into some fundamental quality in the national character of our upper class, and perhaps all of us because we allow it.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made"
Joe
BP says it's now capturing about 5000 barrels a day from the blowout which the video shows is still gushing like crazy. All along they have stuck by their total of 5000 barrels leaking into the gulf, before they started capturing any, the media repeats the same. Idiots.
Yes, well said. And another thing. One has to wonder why Common Dreams who persuades us to "join the movement, for the greater good" can't seem to bring itself to publish any more articles that directly counter that bullcrap estimate.
I sent this link to them late last night, of an article on McClatchy News Services website, but to no avail. They publish the AFP feeds that dutifully repeat the 5,000 figure, with the 'some experts say it is up to 10 times worse', when actually 'some experts say' it is as the article points out 19 times worse.
Here is the link to the article that Common Dreams doesn't seem interested in having you read.
Here is an excerpt…
The latest glimpse of video footage of the oil spill deep under the Gulf of Mexico indicates that around 95,000 barrels, or 4 million gallons, a day of crude oil may be spewing from the leaking wellhead, 19 times the previous estimate, an engineering professor told Congress Wednesday.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/19/94489/gulf-oil-spill-may-be-19-times.html
All BP and gov't figures will be what they think they can get away with momentarily in the presses, not what their techs are telling them.
Make a very rough guess what the damage would be for more or less completely destroying the coastline in three or four states. Add in the medical bills over several decades as people poisoned slowly get sick and die, as babies succumb to various deformities, and so forth.
Now, think what BP would likely pay to get out of liability for that action.
That figure is wa-a-ay higher than the price of American politicians.
Any believable figure has to come from an independent source.
The really scary thing is that neither the government nor corporations believe that in general there is much of a problem in any realm.
When in fact we are seeing self inflicted disasters at least as harmful as WWII with the greatest lose of citizens rights in USA history and the greatest manmade overall environmental damage in the history of the world
Good point, glenn!
The circumstances that will result in the ruination of large parts of the Gulf, the shoreline down through the keys and up the Atlantic Seaboard were enthusiastically endorsed by the American people. Reagan famously said "government is not the solution. Government is the problem." Thus began the great deregualtion of essentially every corporate industry existing in the U.S.
Well. Government got off everyone's back. It's never gotten smaller. It's just gotten more incompetent until finally Bush Junior was allowed to sneak through the back door of the White House. Along comes Obama who's going to reverse some of the worst policies of the Bush Adminstration.
Americans watched it all go down, and many of them enthusiastically cheered taking the teeth out of government. Oversight is a joke as Americans are seeing now when it really matters.
Bottom line? Americans got exactly what they asked for. Reagan, Bush Senior, Clinton and Bush Junior destroyed government by eliminating every oversight function that corporate American didn't like. The banks, the millions of foreclustures and now B.P's reckless, criminal behavior was all perfectly predictable.
The worse part is that Americans will forget this disaster too. B.P. and the other oil giants will go on destroying the earth, and Americans will stay glued to their television, and go out at election time and put more morons into office.
In the immortal words of Pogo "I met the enemy and he is me."
Pogo was right. His words would have been highly applicable if the word terrorist replaced enemy. This is crystal clear. Come on people!
Yet the comments excoriating the government an BP are saturated with futility. What I cannot get over is the unutterable stupidity of this Western civilisation. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were just in a child's story weren't they?
Those who believe in it, who hope for a future in it, talk and write and laugh and scorn and vote and hooray replace the halfwits. We all out here watch and hope and wake up in the morning and discover that just as as we suspected, those who have replaced the singularly stupid predecessors are just as stupid. Then it takes the US citizens another two years to find out.
It is time to look at the premises. The USA is an embarrassment. Even if it is not the only one, it is the biggest one. Once again I state into the howling storm, 'My honest feeling is that the USA is too big to succeed.' Big relates not just to area and population. It relates to economic size. Consider a huge basket of mushrooms. All the US mushrooms are in this one basket called the US government. It only takes one poisonous mushroom amongst them to turn the whole basket into a deadly poisonous mass. Poisonous mushrooms are not nearly as common as benign delicious ones, yet this ability to infect means that small baskets are necessary.
Back to government. Mushrooms are not greedy. Government ministers often are. I would rather trust mushrooms than the US or any other government.
Break up the USA. It is the greatest danger to the world. Smaller government is not the answer. Smaller country is.
"My honest feeling is that the USA is too big to succeed."
Perhaps (and I agree that we are too big), but howling into the wind is what 99% of the people WANT to do. Otherwise, we would have to change ourselves and our actions, and God forbid we ever do that.
Sioux Rose
MARINER: You confuse what "Americans" want with what think tanks financed by the elites set forth as public policy. If 80% of citizens did not want the banker bailout bonus ball, and yet it took place, what's YOUR explanation? The people's interest is NOT being represented, and CD recently published poll numbers that showed about half the population holds views LEFT of center. Deregulation is a direct benefit to the corporate bottom line, while citizens pay in those coal plant explosions, in the toxic water coming down stream to contaminate well water, in the Gulf debacle, in the health "care" sell-out, in the overseas wars, and in the decimation of liberties in the homeland. These events and the deregulation of government have been sold to the public on the basis of LIES. Clinton said NAFTA would make for jobs, not see them in exodus outside of the nation. Obama calls the welfare TO insurance companies health care REFORM. Words matter! The public is being lied to. Even on the climate change subject, big money wants to keep the population driving and shopping and not realizing what is actually at stake.
IF you had a press doing its job, and IF you had an informed public, and IF you had representatives that took the interests of that public seriously, THEN your conclusion about blaming "Americans" would hold water. Right now, it's leaking.
O.K., BP the public is now 100% satisfied that corporate powers are, dare I say, Satanic. I never used to believe in the devil, but hey, you people are real game changers. Except, it's not a game.
Biodegradable dispersants? Please, stop using that term, as it means NOTHING!
When Hurricane Katina happened, I thought, OMG, no one's in charge.
Why am I feeling the same way again? I have a horrible sense of deja vu, only this time, changes will be permanent. ( sorry New Orleans, I know that you still aren't repaired yet.)
I would like to know though, as one report stated, the Coast Guard said that the oily balls of crude coming ashore were not from BP. How does the Coast Guard know this? Is BP tagging theirs and ours for future discovery?
Where is Homeland Security? You people think bomb, bomb, bomb, : has it ever occured to you that corporations can do more damage to the world, then one captain Underpants on an airline?
Homeland Secuity, arrest those "oily" people, and throw them into Gitmo. When the ransom is paid, in 20-30 years, then they can go home to England. If that oil hits the pristine beaches of Cuba, then I'm sure that that country will join in tracking you "slimers" down also. Maybe, for the first time in decades, the U.S. and Cuba will decided that they can get along. Protection of the earth is everyone's common cause.
Oh, and another thing BP; if this disaster starts to ruin more American lives, and family histories, legacies and livlihoods, and kills all the fish in the sea, along with turtles and dolphins ( isn't an endangered whale species passing thorough this area now ?) If you BP, continue to kill the sea, and this country then England is going to have to put ALL U.S. citizens on their "do not fly " list.
You know what they say, "... civilizations fall apart from within.." Wow! BP, you created a new historical term for national decomposition:
GOVERNMENTS fall apart from within, and CORPORATIONS, from without, PUSH US OVER THE EDGE!
Very well-said -- so powerfully stated!
Isn't BP a British corp though?
But i did wonder if other countries could sue the U.S. for criminal negligence and co-conspiracy with BP......
It's all about recovering that oil, not cleaning up their mess.
Do windmills cause this much devastation? Solar panels? Underwater polymers?
A majority of Americans want clean, renewable, sustainable fuels. To ignore that is to condemn all living earthbound things.
No, but windmills are such an eyesore! The view of the sunset from my mansion on Martha's Vineyard would be ruined if we had those hideous windmills!
In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic. I hope those narcissistic rich fucks in Massachusetts are paying attention to the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf, and will think twice next time before they make such ludicrous arguments against offshore wind farms.
They should be ashamed of themselves.
"The view of the sunset from my mansion on Martha's Vineyard would be ruined if we had those hideous windmills! "
I thought those windmills would be placed to the east of the Cape. It would be the sunrise, in that case. But some of those people are truly are nrfs as you say.
Joe