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Makes sense that Costner would blame his slowness on the government regulations. Couldn’t be his technology, could it?

Sometimes the better part about being brilliant is to actually research something instead of making masturbatory snide comments--it feels good to you but doesn't do anyone else any good.

The reason he's having trouble with the EPA is that the effluent from the purification process has a higher level of oil residue than is permitted by the EPA for such an effluent. Never mind that it's cleaned about 99% of the oil out of the water leaving it much cleaner than it was, it's still not as clean as some dork at the EPA pushing outmoded science and technology* says it should be. And so we have a situation where much dirtier water has to be endured because it can't be cleaned up as much as someone else says it should be. This is like saying that you can't have a vaccine against a deadly disease that saves 99 out of 100 victims until you make sure the vaccine saves 99.5 out of every hundred victims.

This is also somewhat like the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife telling folks in Louisiana that they can't build berms to protect the mashes and estuaries because they're "endangered."

*One of my uncles was until recently the CEO of a major midwestern electrical utility for almost 30 years. He's had plenty of experience dealing with the EPA. He said they have to meet the guidelines, but there's no way they would ever, at the EPA's suggestion, take EPA as a parter in renovating things or take government loans, also at the EPA's suggestion, to fund the renovation. He said their science is not state of the art and that their scientists are as outmoded as their techniques.

What portion of the 3.3 million gallons of water in the Gulf of Mexico do you think Costner can put thru his centrifuge? And how much do you think it would cost to do that? His efforts are not going to make the slightest difference in the clean up efforts, no matter what the EPA says. It’s pure PR for BP and the government—nothing more. If he weren’t a celebrity, they would not give him the time of day.