BP to United States: Screw your directives, we are sticking with Corexit dispersant

BP has told the Environmental Protection Agency that it cannot find a safe, effective and available dispersant to use instead of Corexit, and will continue to use that chemical application to help break up the growing spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP was responding to an EPA directive Thursday that gave BP 24 hours to identify a less toxic alternative to Corexit -- and 72 hours to start using it -- or 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."

BP spokesman Scott Dean said Friday that BP had replied with a letter "that outlines our findings that none of the alternative products on the EPA's National Contingency Plan Product Schedule list meets all three criteria specified in yesterday's directive for availability, toxicity and effectiveness."

Dean noted that "Corexit is an EPA pre-approved, effective, low-toxicity dispersant that is readily available, and we continue to use it." .....

A second panelist at Markey's briefing, Carl Safina, president and co-founder of Blue Ocean Institute, a New York-based conservation organization, was even more unsparing in his criticism of the use of a dispersant strategy, which he said had more to do with PR than good science.

"It's not at all clear to me why we are dispersing the oil at all," Safina said. "It's an out-of-sight, out-of-mind strategy. It's just to get it away from the cameras on the shoreline.


http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/bp_is_sticking_with_its_disper.html

They just mask the problem & make it harder to clean up. Makes sense to me. Guess it's great for the Corexit stocks though...

:silly:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/17/bp-dispersant-toxic /

BP chose more toxic, less effective oil dispersant manufactured by company with ‘close ties’ to oil giant.

<snip>

So far, BP has told federal agencies that it has applied more than 400,000 gallons of a dispersant sold under the trade name Corexit and manufactured by Nalco Co., a company that was once part of Exxon Mobil Corp. and whose current leadership includes executives at both BP and Exxon. And another 805,000 gallons of Corexit are on order, the company said, with the possibility that hundreds of thousands of more gallons may be needed if the well continues spewing oil for weeks or months.

But according to EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude.

Of 18 dispersants whose use EPA has approved, 12 were found to be more effective on southern Louisiana crude than Corexit, EPA data show. Two of the 12 were found to be 100 percent effective on Gulf of Mexico crude, while the two Corexit products rated 56 percent and 63 percent effective, respectively. The toxicity of the 12 was shown to be either comparable to the Corexit line or, in some cases, 10 or 20 times less, according to EPA.

BP “shares close ties” with Nalco

BP board member who served as an executive at the company for 43 years also sits on Nalco’s board, and critics suggest there may be a conflict of interest in BP’s choice of Corexit. “It’s a chemical that the oil industry makes to sell to itself, basically,” said Defenders of Wildlife’s Richard Charter. While use of dispersants helps keep oil off beaches and out of wetlands, ...more..

grrrr

:sarcasm:

scientists running science sounds kinda sensible.

BP just does what they want...

The government may not have the resources to fix the gusher, but they can damn well tell BP to stop spraying dispersant. :wtf:

Perhaps BP should be in charge of stopping their volcano of spewing crude oil, but they should not be in charge of the cleanup.

This is bullshit! :banghead:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4393501&mesg_id=4393602

:grr:

...until they become compliant with the EPA.

who owns whom?

Why aren't we seizing their assets, freezing their bank accounts, arresting their CEO and Board of Directors?

I mean, wtf?!? A private company gets to defy an order from the Feds and nothing happens?

:nuke:
sw

is owned.