[unspun]

1,250 barrels of Corexit treating 1.6 million barrels of crude oil is doing all of this, rather than the 8,000 psi wellhead pressure, the 40% methane concentration, the mile long transit from release point to surface... So if they cease to treat the oil at the wellhead with Corexit, then everything will be just fine, and we can use all the great traditional clean up methods.

It's the argument of deceit, to put words in the mouth of one's adversary, then to diecredit them.

Choose your sides wisely.

Or, in this case, if you really wish to, keep arguing that the dispersant they are using is ineffective, therefore they should keep using it. I think I might find more challenging arguments at DU or HuffPo.

BTW, have you seen the video of the jets they are spraying into the petroleum, at its point of entry? BTW2, are you an expert in this field? I have communicated with one. Maybe you would like to be introduced. (Don't worry, this last paragraph is rhetorical.)

[kingu]

It's the argument of deceit, to put words in the mouth of one's adversary, then to diecredit them.

Your argument: the dispersant is harming the environment and will be a significant toxic source, and should be ceased immediately, and other methods used to clean up the crude oil spill. No words put in your mouth, that is your argument. Please correct me if I am not summarizing it to your satisfaction.

My argument: This isn't a crude oil spill in any conventional manner. What reaches the surface is a separated petrochemical spill that can be broken down into four major groups:

• Methane saturated water - something that if we really had a manner of cleaning up, we would have used already to clean up the dead zones along the gulf coast from years of runoff from the Mississippi. Unfortunately, this methane saturated water precludes the use of oil eating bacteria, as putting that bacteria into such an environment will cause a catastrophic leaching of what oxygen is in the water, creating even larger 'dead zones' in the gulf.
• Tar solids - The only effective manner of cleaning up this has been boom operations, or scraping it off of beaches. Conventional skimmer craft get clogged by the tars and have an extremely high maintenance cost to the environment to clean after a short period of use, both in money and dealing with the disposal of the toxic tars that has to be cleaned off.
• Light petrochemicals - the surface sheen you find in every port in America. Mother nature degrades this stuff faster than we can efficiently clean it up.
• Medium oils - Now this is the stuff we can efficiently clean up under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, the surface area where this stuff tends to come up, randomly, depending upon unpredictable subsurface currents, is over a 350 square mile area, with pools of it mixed with tar solids. Which means it really can't be cleaned up by conventional means, and is why they are using areal and subsurface dispersant. Since it breaks that medium oil into smaller droplets which is far easier for mother nature to clean up for us.

Use of underwater or surface dispersant is immaterial to the component parts I listed - that's what reaches the surface anyway. But using the dispersant helps reduce the damage done by that medium oil.

Now what about the toxic concerns of the dispersant itself? Bleach is a toxic substance. You absolutely don't want to drink the stuff. But put a few drops into contaminated water, or into water that will be stored for long time, you make it drinkable. The source material is deadly - you drink that bleach straight up, you could easily suffer severe health effects. But diluted, it serves as a very helpful substance.

The same can be said for the dispersant. Toxic alone, but so diluted by the volume of water that you're dealing with that it the beneficial effects of breaking apart that medium oil into smaller droplets outweighs any toxic effects.

I know this is completely against the propaganda you've been posting on here, and digs hard into the conspiracy theories, but if you've a credible source that disputes anything I've said in here, I'd love to read it.

The only component material in the dispersant that is not contained in larger quantities in the spill itself or the ocean environment is sulfur, and the sulfur content, according to material safety sheets, is about 6%, or when put into context of release amount including the spill itself, about 4 ppm. Enough that it would create an odor if the spill was on land, but mixed with the trillions of gallons of water in the gulf, unmeasurable by any scientific devices I know of.

To summarize: This isn't a conventional crude oil spill which we can use all the tricks and toys that we've designed over the years. The toxicity of the dispersant is diluted enough to pose no major health risk. Not using the dispersant leaves pools of medium oil which is difficult to clean up due to the surrounding tar solids, and poses a significant risk of damage to the ocean environment.