Posted on 12/02/2012 6:31:17 AM PST by Altariel
For microscopic animals living in the Gulf, even worse than the toxic oil released during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster may be the very oil dispersants used to clean it up, a new study finds.
More than 2 million gallons (7.5 million liters) of oil dispersants called Corexit 9527A and 9500A were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in an effort to prevent oil from reaching shore and to help it degrade more quickly.
However, when oil and Corexit are combined, the mixture becomes up to 52 times more toxic than oil alone, according to a study published online this week in the journal Environmental Pollution.
There is a synergistic interaction between crude oil and the dispersant that makes it more toxic," said Terry Snell, a study co-author and biologist at Georgia Tech. Using dispersants breaks up the oil into small droplets and makes it less visible, but, "on the other hand, makes it more toxic to the planktonic food chain," Snell told LiveScience.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Of course the EPA can’t be reached for comment. The studies conflict with their version of reality.
Didn’t we go through something similar during the Exxon Valdes cleanup? Harm of the cleanup?
Wash a sink of dishes with Dawn (the same degreasing used in BP leak) and let it sit for several hours. Drain the water and feel the bottom of the sink, it will be covered with grease because it breaks it down, then it sinks.
Now imagine the bottom of the Gulf.
This was already known at the time.
Obama ordered the dispersant used in large quantities, because it was made in a factory owned by his Chicago cronies.
Obama also seems to have done everything he could to slow the repairs down, although that also could have been the incompetant Coast Guard commander who was put in charge. Other countries offered to help, but Obama refused to let them in.
The first thing I thought was why is this person writing this? What are his motives. Then I questioned the “science” behind it. Is this some more junk science like global warming?
how many million gallons of sea water is in the gulf? In the end, how many parts per Trillion is the dispersant vs sea water? I suspect that if you drank the water in the gulf, the salt would kill you long before you were affected by any chemicals.
To have a government enviromental agency report that they find toxins is like paying the wolf to guard the hen house.
Foolish, at best.
You misread the article:
” The results contrast with those released by the Environmental Protection Agency in August 2010. That study found that a mixture of oil and Corexit isn’t more toxic than oil alone to both a species of shrimp and species of fish. However, several studies have found the mixture is more toxic than oil to the embryos of several fish species. The EPA could not immediately be reached for comment.
“To date, EPA has done nothing but congratulate itself on how Corexit was used and avow they would do it the same way again,” MacDonald said.”
Petroleum is a natural organic compound. Bacteria love the stuff. Natural bacteria would have taken care of it. But then you can’t call it a crisis and not let it go to waste.
Yet AFAIK scientists are presently unable to quantify any significant damage to the Gulf’s ecosystem as a result of the spill.
I’m not averse to the idea put forward here, but suspect the authors’ agenda is not to find better ways to clean up spills, but rather to ban all offshore drilling as too dangerous for the environment.
The volume of oil released into the gulf by the BP oil spill was proportionally the same as a large can of beer poured into a pro football stadium filled with water. I would defy you to find any evidence of the beer.
I think instead of science and reason, we have a gaggle of fools leading us in circles down the drain.
I recall reading an article in 2010 about this. It was known from European experience at the time about the toxicity of the dispersants, but they were used anyway.
Somewhere in the archives is an article on that very matter. It was posted here at Free Republic for those of you who enjoy doing research.
So this research could be validated by going to the Gulf and determining whether there were any live animals in the Gulf, correct?
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