444,000 Gallons of Dispersant on the Leak So Far, Another 180,000 Gallons Available

[tekisui]

Source: Florida Today

Dispersant Concerns

WASHINGTON —Using a chemical dispersant to break up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could hurt the environment, senators and government officials warned Tuesday.

"It is toxic," Sen. Ben Cardin said of the dispersant, Corexit 9500, during a joint hearing of two Senate subcommittees. "We don't know if it's going to work and we don't know about the damage to our environment."

Cardin, D-Md., worried the dispersant could cause the oil to settle on the ocean floor after breaking it up.

James Jones, deputy assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention at the Environmental Protection Agency, said the dispersant's effectiveness in breaking up the oil is worth whatever damage it might do to the environment.

"The agency has been very clear that there is an environmental tradeoff," Jones said.

Thirty-seven planes have dropped 444,000 gallons of dispersant on the spill so far, and another 180,000 gallons are available, according to BP, which was leasing the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded and sank last month, creating the spill.

Low levels of dispersant have been shown to kill corals and anemones or have made them lethargic, Carys Mitchelmore, an associate professor in environmental science at the University of Maryland, told lawmakers on the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittees on Oversight and on Water and Wildlife.

Mitchelmore said research to date hasn't addressed the unprecedented amounts of dispersant being dumped on the Gulf spill.

more: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100512/NEWS01/5120333/1006/Dispersant+concerns

[Oregone]

1. And if the dispersants cause our fish to evolve into land-walking predators

We can release tigers in the wild to control their populations. And if the tigers....

[lonestarnot]

2. Further ecoterrorism.

[Oregone]

3. Not a bit

"terrorism" is only a word for poor brown people