Just yesterday Congressman Markey is asking if more dispersants were used than BP disclosed to the public. There have been a lot of questions surrounding the use of dispersants, from their level of toxicity and the usefulness to them in a spill of this size.
I wrote about the mix of using booming and dispersants and how people actually questioned doing both at the same time (although there has been a lot of talk as well how booming was bust and not done very well either). But rounding up dispersed oil in booms makes no sense. The whole operation by BP seemed rather, well, highly questionable. The technology for drilling had come a long way, but not the technology for dealing with oil spills and the health of the workers for cleaning them up.
So now that BP is declaring victory, the oil is coming to a halt, and even disappearing there are more questions we need to ask rather than throwing a party.
BP knows the game, it's more about perception than reality, that's why they've spent a lot of money on PR, it's why they've bought up scientists to spin their message and they've put things out there for the media to eat up.
But not everyone along the Gulf coast is ready to celebrate quite yet. Especially in hard-hit Louisiana, there are deep suspicions that BP will look for any excuse to pull out of the region early, to declare victory and go home—even while there's still oil to be cleaned up. Certainly BP is ready to shift its focus. Incoming BP CEO Bob Dudley told reporters on Friday that it was "not too soon for a scaleback" in the cleanup efforts, and that we'd likely see a reduction in the number of hazmat-suited cleanup workers patrolling the beaches. Later a BP spokesperson told the New York Times that "there is going to be a natural transition from a short-term emergency response, skimming and cleaning up beaches, over time to a long-term recovery and restoration organization."
To that end, the company announced on Friday the hiring of James Lee Witt, the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) under President Clinton, to help oversee the long-term effort to restore the Gulf. But parish officials in Louisiana have resisted some efforts to redistribute cleanup resources—on Friday afternoon, Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nungesser had his sheriffs pull over trucks that had been taking boom out of his parish. Later that day other parish presidents in Louisiana—who have significant powers, thanks to the state's, uh, peculiar political culture—issued executive orders demanding that no spill response equipment be moved out of their territory. On Saturday morning Nungesser took a group of reporters on a boat trip off the coast, where they saw fresh oil on the marshes and tar balls in the water. The message was clear—the end of the spill had been greatly exaggerated. "Let me take [Dudley] water-skiing out here and see if he comes up black," Nungesser said.
Emphasis mine
This is the overriding theme with BP, much has been "greatly exaggerated" by BP and covered up and blacked out. Greenwashing, whitewashing, you name it, BP has done it. And there still are so many more questions than answers.
So why is Markey asking questions, because this is what is so alarming, the rubberstamping of widespread use of dispersants that has been proven to be toxic and never been used in the amounts it was used with this catastrophic event.
The Coast Guard has routinely approved BP requests to use thousands of gallons of toxic chemical a day to break up oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico despite a federal directive that the chemicals be used only rarely on surface waters, congressional investigators said Saturday after examining BP and government documents.
The documents show the Coast Guard approved 74 waivers over a 48-day period after the restrictions were imposed, resulting in hundreds of thousands of gallons of the chemicals to be spread on Gulf waters. Only in a small number of cases did the government scale back BP's request.
Source
Emphasis mine
So, the EPA said stop using the dispersants because of public outcry, for good reason. The UK banned corexit from use years ago because of proven toxicity. They even said, use something LESS toxic and while people weren't paying attention the EPA rubberstamped approval for use of this toxic chemical, widespread because BP said to, because they had so much of it to use.
And Lisa Jackson just recently defended the USE of dispersants.
"So far the data show we haven't done any damage and actually we've helped with dispersion and used a lot less of the chemical in the process," Jackson said in her office last week. "But that was probably one of the toughest decisions I've ever made because I don't usually say, introduce any substance, even one that's less toxic, to try to fight a problem, and yet, we had to make it."
As of this week, BP has applied nearly 1.5 million gallons of dispersant into the largest oil spill in U.S. history -- almost one million gallons on the surface, and another half-million in the subsea, the first time it has ever been used there.
So who is telling the truth, how much was used, who is to be believed? Who made the choices? And who the hell is running the EPA? BP? Well, BP threatened the EPA, basically saying, let us do this or we will hang the consequences around your neck. Yes. I'm not kidding.
A warning from BP
Levine said that at a May 12 meeting with state officials on BP's dispersant plans, BP Vice President David Rainey warned, "if you're going to tie our hands, then we don't own this spill."
"We will follow whatever their (EPA's) directives are on this," Bob Dudley, who this past week succeeded BP CEO Tony Hayward as the face of BP's response to the disaster in the Gulf, said Thursday. "The dispersant is intended to break the oil into small droplets and then the bacteria begin eating it, and there's lots of evidence to show that's exactly what's happening."
To say there was a lot of haggling going on behind the scenes is probably another exaggeration, on one side or another, there is a reasonable explanation for why things were slow to start and why it seemed the Government's reaction seemed like slow motion. But how we let BP hold this administration and the EPA hostage by threats shows that corporations have far more control over regulation, and ultimately the best interest of the people who should matter the most in this case, the people who live along the Gulf coast and who will pay the ultimate price, with their health, the livelihoods and their way of life.
It's a problem when we have no idea how much dispersant was used, these questions must be asked. More needs to be done to find out why the EPA caved to BP.
Congress is stepping up its scrutiny of chemical dispersants sprayed on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to prevent crude from washing ashore.
Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, contends that BP PLC and the Coast Guard have used more of the chemicals than widely reported. On Saturday he demanded that federal officials provide his office with more information about use of the chemicals, which the Environmental Protection Agency limited in late May due to concerns about their effects on marine life.
...
"BP carpet bombed the ocean with these chemicals, and the Coast Guard allowed them to do it," Rep. Markey said in a statement.
Source
The dispersants weren't just sprayed over the water though, it was sprayed near land, near homes and near the people who live off the coast. This is not just an environmental disaster, this is a disaster that we still cannot grasp.
Everyone wants to believe that it is all but coming to an end. It is not.
Riki Ott has some astounding information about the use of Corexit and it's affects on human beings, the environment and animals. There is exstensive information on the chemicals used and the health hazards posed by those chemicals and the oil itself.
Though all dispersants are potentially dangerous when applied in such volumes, Corexit is particularly toxic. It contains petroleum solvents and a chemical that, when ingested, ruptures red blood cells and causes internal bleeding. It is also bioaccumulative, meaning its concentration intensifies as it moves up the food chain.
New York Times
As I said, it was not just being sprayed over the water, but on the shore!
The long term affects of the oil are going to be devastating but the dispersants are going to be an issue as well and the combined effects?
This is why I've written about Project Gulf Impact and why we must talk about how all of this is touching so many lives (Please go read my diary, I argue why we have to document the struggles of people in the Gulf) along the Gulf and how people's health is being destroyed by these chemicals, their livelihoods gone, their spirits broken and the environment in long term peril.
We must keep this in the public's eye and remind them that the spill is not ending, this is going to be something we must deal with for generations to come. And part of that will have to do with telling the stories of the people who have been hit the hardest, those living in the Gulf.