BP's Dispersant Disaster: Sweeping The Oil Under The Rug Has Vast Environmental Costs

[mhatrw]

THE SOLUTION TO POLLUTION IS NOT DILUTION!

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/05/24/24greenwire-secret-formulas-data-shortages-fuel-arguments-o-9112.html

As the quantity of dispersant that BP has sprayed on the spill surpassed 800,000 gallons last weekend, experts say the secret formulas, combined with the sparse water-quality data released by U.S. EPA, make an independent assessment of the dispersant strategy next to impossible.

Some scientists are calling for all dispersant use to be halted until the ingredients and effects are better understood. "The data is horrible," said Carys Mitchelmore, an environmental chemist and toxicologist at the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science. A co-author of a 2005 National Academy of Sciences report on dispersants, she has testified repeatedly on Capitol Hill over the gaping holes in the scientific knowledge regarding the chemicals. "There's two frustrations," Mitchelmore said. "One, I don't know what's in them, and secondly, I really hope they are running toxicity tests with all of these right now to get a more robust scientific data set."

The company responsible for containing the spill, BP PLC, continued to spar with EPA over the company's decision to rely on two types of Corexit -- proprietary dispersant formulas manufactured by Nalco Holding Co., which has close ties to both BP and Exxon Mobil Corp. "Until we know more about the dispersants, I'd follow up with BP and EPA and tell them to stop, stop," legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle told the Energy and Commerce Committee.

"It's not at all clear to me why we're dispersing the oil at all," said Carl Safina, president and co-founder of the Blue Ocean Institute. "It seems to me you would want it as thick and as concentrated so we can deal with it right there. We seem to be saying we're going to take this concentrated oil, and we're going to dissolve it. It's an out-of-sight, out-of-mind strategy. It's a PR stunt to dissolve this oil with dispersants. It's just to get it out of the way of the cameras on the shoreline."

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/144655.html

A marine toxicologist from Maine who traveled to New Orleans earlier this month to get a firsthand look at the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the effects of the chemicals used to fight it said she was horrified by what she saw. Dr. Susan Shaw of Brooklin, who accompanied a London Times crew to the gulf May 20-22, said the damage done by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is rivaled by the harm done by the dispersants British Petroleum is using to break up the viscous fluid. “We’re actually doing a pretty good job of poisoning the sea, and we’re calling it a chemical remedy,” Shaw said. ...

Shaw, who is one of the few experts who has swum in the spill to gauge its impact, said she saw an oil and dispersant mixture on May 21 and that the dispersants work. But they work too well, she said. Instead of the oil collecting on beaches and harming marine animals, it is being broken down into smaller globs that affect animals further down the food chain, such as phytoplankton, Shaw said.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” she said. “They’re definitely breaking up the oil and globs,” but smaller fish such as herring or anchovy eat the poisoned phytoplankton, and they become poisoned for larger animals who eat them. “My view from being down there is that we should not be using these dispersants in such unprecedented volumes,” she said. “What I see unfolding is that we’re going to lose these stitches in the food web … and that will devastate all the higher organisms,” Shaw said.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-05-25/business/ct-biz-0526-nalco-20100525_1_dispersant-chemical-spill/3

Scientists said other impacts aren't being considered. "I was blown away, surprised, that a material that could be used at this kind of scale, a Gulf of Mexico response plan, would approve the use of a material that you fundamentally can't know everything about," said Doug Rader, chief ocean scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund in North Carolina.

Rader said the sea surface, where most of the material is being applied, contains sea life at its earliest and most sensitive stage. Dispersing the oil, he said, could spread the impact into other ecosystems. The oil-chemical mix binding to particulate matter and sinking like snow, called "marine snow'' by scientists, can affect bottom dwellers. "I think there's a huge question about whether or not it even makes sense to be using dispersants at this scale, particularly on the bottom," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/business/energy-environment/13greenwire-less-toxic-dispersants-lose-out-in-bp-oil-spil-81183.html

BP PLC continues to stockpile and deploy oil-dispersing chemicals manufactured by a company with which it shares close ties, even though other U.S. EPA-approved alternatives have been shown to be far less toxic and, in some cases, nearly twice as effective. After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and a deepwater well began gushing crude in the Gulf of Mexico three weeks ago, BP quickly marshaled a third of the world's available supply of dispersants, chemicals that break surface oil slicks into microscopic droplets that can sink into the sea. But the benefits of keeping some oil out of beaches and wetlands carry uncertain costs. Scientists warn that the dispersed oil, as well as the dispersants themselves, might cause long-term harm to marine life. ...

But according to EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude. Of 18 dispersants whose use EPA has approved, 12 were found to be more effective on southern Louisiana crude than Corexit, EPA data show. Two of the 12 were found to be 100 percent effective on Gulf of Mexico crude, while the two Corexit products rated 56 percent and 63 percent effective, respectively. The toxicity of the 12 was shown to be either comparable to the Corexit line or, in some cases, 10 or 20 times less, according to EPA. ... "Why wouldn't you go for the lesser toxic formulation?" said Carys Mitchelmore, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science. ...

Critics say Nalco, which formed a joint venture company with Exxon Chemical in 1994, boasts oil-industry insiders on its board of directors and among its executives, including an 11-year board member at BP and a top Exxon executive who spent 43 years with the oil giant. "It's a chemical that the oil industry makes to sell to itself, basically," said Richard Charter, a senior policy adviser for Defenders of Wildlife.

The older of the two Corexit products that BP has used in the Gulf spill, Corexit 9527, was also sprayed in 1989 on the 11-million-gallon slick created by the Exxon Valdez grounding in Alaska's Prince William Sound. Cleanup workers suffered health problems afterward, including blood in their urine and assorted kidney and liver disorders. Some health problems were blamed on the chemical 2-butoxyethanol, an ingredient discontinued in the latest version of Corexit, Corexit 9500, whose production Nalco officials say has been ramped up in response to the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Among Corexit's competitors, a product called Dispersit far outpaced Corexit 9500, EPA test results show, rating nearly twice as effective and between half and a third as toxic, based on two tests performed on fish and shrimp. ... Dispersit was formulated to outperform Corexit and got EPA approval 10 years ago, he said, but the dispersant has failed to grab market share from its larger rival. "When we came out with a safer product, we thought people would jump on board," he said. "That's not the case. We were never able to move anyone of any size off the Corexit product."

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-13-want-to-phase-out-a-hazardous-substance-dump-it-in-the-gulf

Corexit 9527A is the older product, and considered more toxic. According to its Material Safety Data Sheet, it contains a chemical called 2-butoxyethanol -- at a level of between 30 percent and 60 percent by weight (the public information on these products is maddeningly inexact). Since writing the post last week, I've come upon the entry for 2-butoxyethanol on the website of Haz-Map, a service of the National Library of Medicine that provides "information about the health effects of exposure to chemicals."

This is not charming stuff, according to Haz-Map:

Severe hemoglobinuria and changes in the lungs, kidneys, and liver are seen in mice after 7-hour lethal concentration studies. Volunteers showed no evidence of adverse effects other than mucous membrane irritation after 8 hour exposures to 200 ppm. ... For ethylene glycol ethers, there is limited positive evidence of spontaneous abortions and decreased sperm counts in humans and strong positive evidence of birth defects and testicular damage in animals.

Moreover, such effects seem to happen at low concentrations -- as low as 20 parts per million. So I asked Jackson and her crew to "drill down" (pun not intended, I promise) on just what sort of effect dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of a substance that contains lots of 2-butoxyethanol would have on the Gulf. Jackson gave the floor to Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Research and Development and the Science Advisor to the Agency. His answer surprised me. Rather than discuss the toxicity of 2-butoxyethanol, Anastas sought to assure us it was no longer in use -- because the Gulf cleanup crew had already dumped all of the Corexit 9527A it had in hand into the Gulf, and were now using only Corexit 9500. ...

At one point, Jackson said that the Gulf cleanup team had received a total of 500,000 gallons of dispersants, and had used 400,000 gallons by May 10. Another 805,000 gallons are on order, she added. Someone asked her how much of each dispersant -- 9500 and 9527A -- had been used. Jackson said she didn't know for sure, but she understood that use so far had been "roughly 50/50" between the two. If 9527A made up half of the volume of dispersants used by May 10, that means that something like 200,000 gallons of the dodgy stuff went into the Gulf. And we don't know whether more is on the way; Jackson said she had no information on the 805,000 gallons of dispersant on order.

much more ...

NY Times Article Now Scrubbed From NY Times Website

Also on Monday, Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, raised new questions about the use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil plume deep under the surface of the gulf. The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of a trademarked oil-dispersing chemical known as Corexit both on the surface and closer to the source of the leaking oil, at a depth of 5,000 feet.

In a letter to Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, Mr. Markey said that some formulations of Corexit had been banned in Britain because of harmful effects on sea life. More than half a million gallons of the dispersants have already been used in the Gulf, and hundreds of thousands more gallons are being prepared for use. “The release of hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico could be an unprecedented, large and aggressive experiment on our oceans,” said Mr. Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. “The information regarding the chemical composition, efficacy and toxicity of the dispersants currently being used is scarce.”

He asked E.P.A. to provide information on the effect of water temperature and pressure on the dispersant, a combination of solvents, surfactants and other compounds. He also requested detailed data on the subsea tests that led E.P.A. and the United States Coast Guard to approve its use a mile below the surface.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/science/earth/28workers.html?src=mv

News of the sick workers brought consternation on Thursday at a BP safety training seminar in Chalmette, La., for fishermen planning to take part in the cleanup. “Why are they using dispersants that are illegal in other countries?” asked one of the fishermen, who declined to be named, saying that BP had instructed the men not to speak to the news media. (Corexit is banned in Britain but approved for use in the United States and Canada.)

Several said BP officials had sought to reassure them about the safety of the dispersants during the morning session. “They say we don’t need respirators,” said another one, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

At the West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, La., where the seven workers were hospitalized, doctors could not say for sure what caused the problem. The first three workers were from a single boat, and one was sick enough that emergency services were summoned to airlift him off the vessel. The other two piloted the boat north to Venice, where an ambulance took them to the hospital. The other four in the same work crew were admitted later in the day. They said they believed that they had been exposed to dispersant spray, according to Dr. Robert Chugden, an emergency room physician at the hospital.

http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/2010/05/28/allegations-emerge-bp-prevents-fishermen-from-wearing-respirators

AMY GOODMAN: What about respirators? Are people wearing respirators?

CLINT GUIDRY: No, ma’am. Having had prior experience, I know these people. They’re friends. They’re family. I bought respirators, and I brought them down to these people. And when they tried to wear them, the BP representatives on site told them that it wasn’t a dangerous situation, and they didn’t need to wear them, and if they did, they would be taken off the job.

AMY GOODMAN: If they wore respirators, they’d be taken off the job?

CLINT GUIDRY: Yes. …

AMY GOODMAN: But how does wearing respirators threaten BP? How do the workers, the cleanup crews, wearing respirators, how does that threaten BP?

CLINT GUIDRY: If you would do your research, the same situation occurred with Exxon Valdez over twenty years ago. It is a question of liability. The minute BP declares that there is a respiratory danger on the situation is the day that they let the door open for liability suits down the line. If they could have gotten away with covering this up, like they did in Alaska Valdez situation, like Exxon, they would not have to pay a penny for any kind of health-related claims.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bp-had-alternative-less-toxic-dispersant-c

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Who decided which dispersant to use? BP?

LAMAR MCKAY, PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN, BP AMERICA, INC.: I don't know the...

NADLER: You don't know?

MCKAY: I don't know the individual who decided which...

NADLER: I didn't ask the individual.

MCKAY: I don't...

NADLER: Was it the -- BP who decided, or was it the national -- the government who decided, or the national incident command?

(CROSSTALK)

MCKAY: I don't know. I don't know.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100523%2C0%2C907236.story

BP has rebuffed demands from government officials and environmentalists to use a less-toxic dispersant to break up the oil from its massive offshore spill, saying that the chemical product it is now using continues to be "the best option for subsea application." ...

"While the dispersant BP has been using is on the agency's approved list, BP is using this dispersant in unprecedented volumes and, last week, began using it underwater at the source of the leak — a procedure that has never been tried before," the EPA noted last week, acknowledging that "much is unknown about the underwater use of dispersants."

http://www.fastcompany.com/1643601/epa-approves-use-of-harmful-chemical-dispersants-in-oil-spill

According to Sawyer, Corexit is also known as deodorized kerosene--a substance with health risks to humans as well as sea turtles, dolphins, breathing reptiles, birds, and any species that need to surface for air exchanges.

http://www.necn.com/05/27/10/Chemical-dispersant-used-in-Gulf-sparks-/landing.html?blockID=242732&feedID=4215

Cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is literally a pain in the neck says some workers-- now complaining of nausea, difficulty breathing, dizziness and severe headaches. Critics are worried exposure to a chemical being used to prevent oil slicks from coming ashore.

Dr. James shine is the senior lecturer of aquatic chemistry at Harvard University's school of public health. Shine says BP is using a controversial chemical dispersant to break oil into tiny particles that sink underneath the water's surface protecting--- the wetlands and its wildlife- but threatening animals on the seafloor. "The concern is you know the one they are using is on the more toxic end of the dispersants that exist.. ... We did it you know with the Exxon Valdez probably saying we've got to come up with something better and now we are here decades later doing the same thing."

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_15187813?nclick_check=1

There were a lot of lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989. One form of dispersant Corexit was used there too. Nineteen months after that spill, the dispersant was not only evident in the marine ecosystem, but mussels were still poisoned. And the effects of spreading the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were far and wide as they caused developing hearts of Pacific herring and salmon to fail. People exposed to Corexit suffered a number of long-term respiratory and other serious ailments. Research from Israel in 2007 clearly showed that dispersant kills coral reefs and significantly retards regrowth.

Florida is the only state in continental United States to have extensive (about 6,000) shallow coral reefs near its coasts, and most are located in the Florida Keys. These reefs range in age between 5,000 and 7,000 years old, and they are the third largest coral reef formation on Earth. Surrounding the corals are extensive beds of sea grasses. Between the reefs and the sea grasses are more than 500 species of fish, spiny lobsters, snow crabs, Caribbean manatees, American crocodiles, leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp's ridley and green sea turtles. ...

The solution to pollution is not dilution. Each time we lose one species, we impoverish our planet. Spreading cancer-causing poisons throughout a marine ecosystem from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean is not acceptable, especially since these lessons were learned at the expense of Prince William Sound and the Pacific Ocean.

http://themoderatevoice.com/73831/epa-orders-bp-to-cut-back-corexit-dispersant-on-gulf-oil-slick

The Environmental Protection Agency ordered BP to cut back by 50 to 75% of the oil dispersant Corexit Monday because they don’t believe the oil company’s word that it does not effect sea life. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the feds will conduct their own independent tests of the chemical in which 800,000 gallons have been sprayed on the Gulf’s oil slick. For reasons she did not explain, BP is allowed to continue releasing the dispersant on the source of the gusher 5,000 feet deep and 50 miles south of Louisiana. BP last week failed to comply with an EPA request to find an alternative dispersant which an irate Jackson said was “insufficient.” ...

“We are not satisfied that BP has done extensive analysis of other dispersant options,” Jackson said. “They were more interested in defending their original decisions than studying other options.” A federal lab in Florida will begin testing the dispersant’s effectiveness and toxicity. ...

The 800,000 gallons of Corexit (EC9527A) BP said it has dumped on the Gulf oil slick is manufactured by Nalco Co. of Naperville, Illinois. ... It reports its hazardous properties of butoxyethanol, organic sulfonic acid salt and propylene glycol. On humans, excessive exposure may cause injury to red blood cells, kidney or the liver. It is harmful by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed which would include some sea life although the antidote is flushing with clean water. Nalco’s No. One customer is Big Oil.

http://www.protecttheocean.com/bp-epa-oil-spill

Early on, BP began spraying and injecting solvents into offshore waters. They claimed that dispersing the oil would be a good idea, better for the wetlands. Even then, their plot was in place. They knew that the truth was that the solvents would make the oil exponentially more toxic, (as would adding the solvent itself) but that didn’t matter. Dispersal solvents would see to it that a large portion of that oil never floated to the top or showed up at the shoreline. Why would they do that? Simple enough: If it doesn’t rise to the surface or wash up onto the shores, BP doesn’t have to pay to clean it up. ...

The solvents have seen to it that the oil doesn’t rise to the surface. Instead, long “plumes,” rivers of oil hiding between about 4000 feet down and just below the surface. How much oil? Just one of them is over 10 miles long and about a mile wide. How thick is anyone’s guess. ...

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=382521

"Corexit 9527 is still stocked by various responders in various locations around the world. When the spill occurred, the Gulf response team brought in Corexit dispersants from the various stockpiles, some included 9527, some included 9500."

Whether the government agencies involved in the clean up have reservations about one version over the other isn't clear. But the overall effort was still a responsible thing to do, said Richard Eastman, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc. in Milwaukee.

"BP is in crisis mode and has a comfort level with Nalco and with Corexit," said Eastman. "So Nalco had to scrambled to deliver huge quantizes of that product that BP has asked for. They've never had to deal with that kind of volume before."

Eastman estimates that Nalco has so far sold about $40 million worth of Corexit to BP for the recovery mission. Government agencies, that are part of the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, estimate about 670,000 gallons of the product have been used there since late April.

http://www.protecttheocean.com/gulf-oil-spill-bp

Oil is toxic at 11 ppm while Corexit 9500 is toxic at only 2.61 ppm; Corexit 9500 is four times as toxic as the oil itself. Sure, a lot less of it is being introduced, but that’s still a flawed logical perspective, because it’s not a “lesser of two evils” scenario. BOTH are going into the ocean water.

The lesser of two evils seems to be a product called Dispersit, manufactured by Polychem, a division of U.S. Polychemical Corporation. In comparison, water-based Dispersit is toxic at 7.9-8.2 ppm; Dispersit holds about one third of the toxicity that Corexit 9500 presents. Dispersit is a much less harmful water-based product which is both EPA approved and the U.S. Coast Guard’s NCP list. So why isn’t it being used?

We spoke with Bruce Gebhardt at Polychem Marine Products, asked him if Dispersit was being used in the Gulf Oil Spill situation. “Very little,” he replied. When asked why, the impression was that the government had used Corexit 9500 in the past, and was going with what they know — no matter how dangerous that might prove to be.

http://freeport.nassauguardian.net/national_local/15962901061525.php

She also expressed concern about what could happen to the coral on the sea bed, which takes hundreds of years to grow. "Apparently the consistency of this stuff is like a goop, so that could then potentially layer over all your corals and put like a slime type coating over the corals and they're going to die from starvation because they can't filter feed because then you've cut off their source of being able to draw in the water," she said. "So you've got a potential now of the coral reef being affected, and they're talking about 800, 000 gallons of dispersant that they've put in so far."

http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/05/27/27622.htm

The Coast Guard saw to it that all crew members from the 125 fishing boats were evaluated by medical workers as a precaution. West Jefferson Medical Center spokeswoman Taslin Alphonso said the workers told doctors that they believe chemicals used to break up the oil made them sick. ...

Coastal fishermen expressed frustration at BP this week when it failed observe an order by the Environmental Protection Agency to stop using the Corexit dispersants and find a less harmful substitute by last Sunday night. As of Monday, when BP was still using the dispersant, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said BP can continue to use the dispersant, but asked BP to reduce the amount it uses, saying she believed BP could reduce the amount by as much as 80 percent. ...

Richard Charter, government relations consultant for Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund told Mother Jones last week that oil companies "want to make the visible part of the oil spill disappear -- for political reasons, limiting the liability to the spillers." But, Charter says, "If we were looking at food chain impacts and biomagnifications in the marine ecosystem, we probably never would have invented Corexit." ...

Oil companies designed dispersants to reduce the amount of oil washing up on land. That might spare BP the public relations nightmare of oil-coated birds washing up on Louisiana's shorelines, but scientists say Corexit and the like will simply push the problem underwater. The chemicals, marine toxicologist Dr. Riki Ott says, have "the potential to cause intergenerational harm" to marine life.

http://www.examiner.com/x-51590-Cultural-Issues-Examiner~y2010m5d27-Gulf-oil-spill-named-worst-in-US-history-Louisiana-Congressman-Charlie-Melancon-cries-at-hearing

BP has been, and still is, spraying the area with chemical dispersants that Federal Government officials had ordered the company to scale back on. BP continued to spray the dispersant, Corexit 9500 without so much as a slap on the wrist from government agencies. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a press conference, "we are making environmental tradeoffs" and are "deeply concerned" about potential side effects.” She also expressed her belief that BP can reduce the dispersant quantity by as much as 80 percent. Corexit 9500 has been rated more toxic and less effective than other chemicals on the EPA’s list of 18 approved dispersants. The dispersant contains petroleum distillates and propylene glycol. It’s now reported that these chemicals have caused cleanup crews to become ill with symptoms of dizziness, headaches and nausea while working on boats off of the Louisiana coast.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0525/EPA-girds-for-a-fight-with-BP-over-dispersants-in-Gulf-oil-spill

The Obama administration's frustration with BP over the dispersant issue has been mounting since this weekend. By Sunday, it had become clear that BP would not heed an EPA directive to find an alternative to Corexit, the dispersant that the EPA rates as less effective and more toxic than as many as 12 other products. ...

But the makers of Dispersit – a product rated by the EPA as twice as effective as Corexit and one-third less toxic – refute these claims. They said Monday that they could meet BP's demand and that the ingredients of their dispersant are public.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/05/28/28greenwire-we-have-nothing-to-hide-oil-dispersant-maker-s-42602.html

The manufacturer of the oil-dispersing chemicals being used by BP PLC in the Gulf of Mexico said today that injecting the dispersant on a still-gushing wellhead was unprecedented and should be carried out with ample testing. "That's a new approach," said Erik Fyrwald, CEO of Nalco, whose dispersants are marketed under the name Corexit. "Our belief is, because it is a new approach, it needs to be done with a lot of testing to make sure there are no unfavorable impacts, and we encourage that."

http://www.yourottawaregion.com/news/local/article/822840--oil-dispersant-a-new-challenge-for-perth-wax-researcher

Mounting concerns about the dispersant being used to break up thousands of gallons of crude oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico have also temporarily scuttled Perth resident Willy Nelson's efforts to help the clean up.

Nelson, an environmental wax researcher who has been demonstrating methods to soak up oil using wax for more than four decades, was set to fly to Louisiana to demonstrate his techniques last week. But BP and those involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup have dumped so much oil dispersant into the water that it has changed the composition of the oil. “It is emulsified,” Nelson said. “The dispersant turns it into molasses...This is really skunky, sticky, nasty stuff.”

At press time, Nelson was awaiting the delivery of a sample of the dispersed oil, or “skunk oil,” as he’s calling it, to experiment with before heading to Louisiana to try it out on a larger scale.

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/28/1978204/bp-systemic-failure-endangers.html

"The organizational systems that BP currently has in place, particularly those related to worker safety and health training, protective equipment, and site monitoring, are not adequate for the current situation or the projected increase in cleanup operations," Michaels said in the memo. "I want to stress that these are not isolated problems. They appear to be indicative of a general systemic failure on BP's part, to ensure the safety and health of those responding to this disaster."

Michaels added that BP "has also not been forthcoming with basic, but critical, safety and health information on injuries and exposures." ...

Little-noticed data posted on BP's website and the Deepwater Horizon site show that 32 air samples taken near workers have indicated the presence of butoxyethanol, a component listed as present in an oil spill dispersant used by BP, known as Corexit. The Environmental Protection Agency considers it toxic.