That's the latest news after the EPA issued their directive to BP on Thursday in finding a less toxic dispersant. Here's more from here:
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.
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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."
Here's theNYT article about less toxic dispersants below the jump:
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.
The claims by BP about not being able to find less toxic alternatives have found to be false, as this quote shows:
Among Corexit's competitors, a product called Dispersit far outpaced Corexit 9500, EPA test results show, rating nearly twice as effective and between half and a third as toxic, based on two tests performed on fish and shrimp.
Bruce Gebhardt, president of the company that manufactures Dispersit, U.S. Polychemical Corp., said BP asked for samples of his company's product two weeks ago. Later, he said, BP officials told him that EPA had wanted to ensure they had "crossed all their T's and dotted all their I's" before moving forward. Gebhardt says he could make 60,000 gallons a day of Dispersit to meet the needs of spill-containment efforts. Dispersit was formulated to outperform Corexit and got EPA approval 10 years ago, he said, but the dispersant has failed to grab market share from its larger rival.
Sylvia Earle, a noted scientist and National-Explorer-In-Residence, has called for a stop on the use of dispersants during her testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives:
National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle testified to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday about the potential danger of using Corexit. (Sylvia Earle to U.S. Congress: Cheap oil is costing the Earth)
Not only is the flow of millions of gallons of oil an issue in the Gulf, Earle told the Committee, but also the thousands of gallons of toxic dispersants that make the ocean look a little better on the surface--where most people are--but make circumstances a lot worse under the surface, where most of the life in the ocean actually is.
"The instructions for humans using Corexit, the dispersant approved by the EPA to make the ocean look better warn that it is an eye and skin irritant, is harmful by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed, and may cause injury to red blood cells, kidney or the liver. People are warned not to take Corexit internally, but the fish, turtles, copepods and jellies have no choice. They are awash in a lethal brew of oil and butoxyethanol."
Earle called for a halt on the subsurface use of dispersants, while limiting surface use to strategic sites where other methods cannot safeguard critically important coastal habitats.
This is a direct quote from her, and another expert, Carl Safina of the Blue Ocean Institute:
"We don't know what the effect of dispersants applied a mile underwater is; there's been no laboratory testing of that at all, or the effect of what it does when it combines with oil a mile underwater," said Sylvia Earle, the explorer-in-residence for the National Geographic Society and former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "I would say, until we know more about the fate of the dispersants, I'd tell BP or anybody else who's involved with this, whether it's EPA or whatever, 'Stop, just stop, don't do 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."
Louisiana state officials are concerned about the use of the dispersants and their effect of the ecosystem:
Mark Johnson, a toxicologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said there's "no evidence to suggest" the chemical is a danger.
Tracy Kuhns, of Lafitte, La., was worried about the potentially pervasive effects of dispersant.
"We need to know what's going on with all that oil under the water," she said. "We need to know what's under water. What's on the bottom. And what might be coming in on the tides — especially where those dispersants are concerned."
Louisiana officials also expressed concern. Alan Levine, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, said Friday he is worried dispersants potentially could do more harm to the Gulf Coast than the oil itself.
Wait a minute. Read that quote from Mark Johnson, a toxicologist with the CDC, and compare it to the quote from Sylvia Earle, a noted scientist:
Mark Johnson, a toxicologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said there's "no evidence to suggest" the chemical is a danger.
"The instructions for humans using Corexit, the dispersant approved by the EPA to make the ocean look better warn that it is an eye and skin irritant, is harmful by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed, and may cause injury to red blood cells, kidney or the liver. People are warned not to take Corexit internally, but the fish, turtles, copepods and jellies have no choice. They are awash in a lethal brew of oil and butoxyethanol."
Here's Tom Philpott of Grist.org on the toxic nature of the dispersants being deployed deep underwater in the Gulf of Mexico:
OSHA requires companies to make Material Safety Data Sheets, or MSDSs, available for any hazardous substances used in a workplace, and the ones for these dispersants both contain versions of a disturbing statement. 9500's states that "Component substances have a potential to bioconcentrate," while the one for 9527A has the slightly more comforting, "Component substances have a low potential to bioconcentrate."
This is not what you want to hear about toxins being dumped in the sea by the hundreds of thousands of gallons. The EPA defines bioconcentration as the "accumulation of a chemical in tissues of a fish or other organism to levels greater than in the surrounding medium." In other words, substances that bioconcentrate tend to move from water into fish, where they can do damage to the fish itself, as well as be passed on to predator fish -- and on up the food chain, to human eaters.
And just how toxic is this stuff? The data sheets for both products contain this shocker: "No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product" -- meaning testing their safety for humans.
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They do appear to have toxic properties. Both data sheets include the warning "human health hazards: acute." The MSDS for Corexit 9527A states that "excessive exposure may cause central nervous system effects, nausea, vomiting, anesthetic or narcotic effects," and "repeated or excessive exposure to butoxyethanol [an active ingredient] may cause injury to red blood cells (hemolysis), kidney or the liver." It adds: "Prolonged and/or repeated exposure through inhalation or extensive skin contact with EGBE [butoxyethanol] may result in damage to the blood and kidneys."
And to echo Sylvia Earle, please stop the use of dispersants. They're making booming ineffective, and is making the spew of oil into the ocean even more toxic. It's also a great PR tactic in making the problem look better than it actually is.
UPDATE: Check out this excellent diary by Olympia about drilling in the Arctic.