Massive Experiment: BP's Unprecedented Use of Dispersants:

[amborin]

Is Using Dispersants on the BP Gulf Oil Spill Fighting Pollution with Pollution?

Roughly five million liters of dispersants have now been used to break up the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, making this the largest use of such chemicals in U.S. history. If it continues for 10 months, as long as Mexico's Ixtoc 1 blowout in 1979 in the same region, the Macondo well disaster has a good chance of achieving the largest global use of these chemicals, surpassing 10 million liters.

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agrees, noting in a document for health professionals that "the dispersants contain proven, biodegradable and low-toxicity surfactants," which are "detergentlike" and "in low toxicity solvents."
However, those solvents-petroleum distillates-are also known animal carcinogens, according to toxicology data, and make up 10 to 30 percent of a given volume of COREXIT. And those same everyday products can be deadly to wildlife. "It's the same products in Dawn dishwasher soap," Mitchelmore notes, which is being used widely to clean up oiled birds and other animals. "I wouldn't want to put a fish in Dawn dishwashing soap either. That would kill it."
As a result, the EPA ordered BP to stop spraying dispersants on the oil slick on May 26. The EPA also ordered BP to look for less toxic alternatives on May 20, and the company responded in a letter dated that same day that "BP continues to believe that COREXIT EC9500A is the best alternative." The dispersant continues to be sprayed onto the ongoing oil spill.

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Yet, the results of those tests vary wildly, from toxic impacts occurring at levels of just 2.6 parts per million for COREXIT to 100 ppm for another dispersant, NOKOMIS 3-F4. That suggests to experts that the tests which showed lower toxicity may have employed heavy fuel oil that had lost its potency. After all, volatile organic compounds in oil evaporate quickly when exposed to air and can even wash off in water. "These are order of magnitude differences," Mitchelmore notes. "A lot of that can relate to how those tests were set up."
Nevertheless, just 20 ppm of COREXIT 9500-or one drop in 2.5 liters of water-inhibits growth of Skeletonema costatum, a Gulf of Mexico diatom, according to toxicology test data presented in the 2005 NRC report. It appears to inhibit the phytoplankton's ability to perform photosynthesis, specifically blocking part of the biochemistry that enables the photosystem II complex, Villalobos says. "Skeletonema seems to fall among the most sensitive ones," he says. "Like many aquatic plants, these are organisms that are resilient, that tend to come back even though you wipe them out in some cases chemically."
COREXIT is also not approved for use in U.K. waters because it fails the so-called "limpet test". That test involves spraying the dispersant and oil on rocks and seeing if limpets (a type of small mollusk) can still cling to them, a test which COREXIT and many other dispersants with slippery surfactants fail. "This is not a product for rocky shores," Villalobos says. "These are only for open sea waters."

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In addition to creating subsurface plumes (and providing a rich feast for oil-eating microbes), it remains unclear what kind of dosage of dispersed oil sea life throughout the water column is facing. NOAA measurements show that levels reach 100 ppm of dispersed oil in the first half-meter of water, dropping to 12.5 ppm at 10 meters and unknown levels even deeper. "There isn't any information on what is the environmentally relevant level of dispersant," Mitchelmore notes. "Dispersed oils are going to be toxic, particularly in the top 10 meters that contains all the sensitive life stages. Anything that has sensitive membranes can be affected by dispersants and dispersed oil."
Sunlight falling on the dispersed oil may make the problem worse through a phenomenon known as phototoxicity. Compounds in the oil act as a catalyst to transfer some of the sun's energy into oxygen, converting the latter to a more reactive state that can literally burn up cells. And as fish and other sea life ingest the dispersed oil, it can be broken down into more toxic by-products. "What do these things break down into?" Mitchelmore says. "In toxicology it's quite often not the original compound that's the toxic entity."
Ultimately, the problem is that too little is known about the dispersants and the dispersed oil. "Given that this is a billion-dollar industry, why were those data gaps not filled?" Mitchelmore asks. "The whole issue regarding limited toxicity data-that's not just common to dispersants, that's common to tens of thousands of chemicals we're putting out into the environment daily."

After all, it was only after decades of using bisphenol A, polybrominated flame retardants and other chemicals that significant concerns began to manifest. In effect, usage replaced safety testing-and that's exactly what is happening with dispersants and the massive spill in the Gulf. Different regulation of chemicals and the chemical industry might forestall toxicological mysteries like those surrounding dispersants-and their thousands of chemical cousins-in the future.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/18-9

[blindpig]

1. Not their problem....

They're Capitalists.

[amborin]

4. Schumpeter said the state was necessary, to save capitalists from themselves

left to their own devices, their short-term intersts would imperil the long-term goal of preserving the capitalist system itself

while i don't subscribe to S's orientation, he made many valid points, this among them.....so maybe there's some ultimate irony here....

[blindpig]

9. To a degree it serves that purpose...

but they don't endure fetters well, this series of crisis surely shows that Schumpeter was grossly optimistic in that regard. As we have seen to our disgust, the state is also their piggy bank after they fuck everything up. And the state also is the guaranteer of markets, and iron fist.

[amborin]

11. absolutely!

the state is the ultimate guarantor of private property rights, above all else; and as you say, will discipline labor, in capital's interest, whenever necessary.

[Ignis]

2. Private profits; public risks.

:puke:

[DrDan]

3. this is EXACTLY why the FEDS should have been in charge of this part of the disaster

[amborin]

6. +10000

[amborin]

5. over and over we're seeing this

[Ignis]

12. I must confess that Mander opened my eyes to this missing debate.

http://www.amazon.com/Absence-Sacred-Failure-Technology-Survival/dp/0871565099

The point is that We The People--not the MIC--need to have more direct input on the ability of Corporations/Governments to perform unethical experiments on the Environment/Populace without informed consent, while waving the banner of Science and Progress. Time and time again, history has shown that corporations will find ways to hide the real risks and transfer them to the public.

I was dragged kicking and screaming into reading this book--frankly, because I perceived Mander as a simple neo-Luddite. But he makes a cogent argument is this debate, even if his examples aren't the best.

I do think that Mander too easily abdicates responsibility for providing solutions to these problems that he's presented, but DUers should have no such qualms: Vote LEFT, and hold our elected officials' feet to the fire on issues of accountability, transparency, and the public weal!

:rant:

[inna]

7. It's not just "pollution", it's poisoning and killing the Gulf.

[amborin]

8. it's disastrous, and BP still ignores the EPA's directive to stop using Corexit

[Dr Morbius]

10. That's so infuriating. It makes one wonder who's really in charge.

With apologies to the President, mind you. I just think he is reluctant to personally tell BP to stop using Corexit.

[Ignis]

13. The $20bn was the focus of the meeting, not the Corexit.

That's...odd, isn't it?