EPA accused of violating Clean Water Act through approval of corexit in BP oil cleanup

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/epa-accused-violating-clean-water-act-through-approval-corexit-bp-gulf-oil-cleanup-1362928279



***SNIP

OSEI is actually not off base with their accusations. Reports from late 2012 revealed that using oil dispersants like Corexit make oil spills less visible, but when combined with the oil, create a mixture that is 52 times more toxic than the oil itself. The studies revealed that even in small amounts, the combination of oil and Corexit reduced the number of egg hatchings in small marine invertebrates by 50 percent. These are small creatures like krill, shrimp and other crustaceans that form the bottom of the oceanic food pyramid.

Those results were just from small doses of the mixture. And as I wrote in 2011, the amount of Corexit dumped into the Gulf was anything but “small”:

An estimated 1.8 million gallons of Corexit were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to displace the 206 million gallons of oil that spewed from a broken wellhead on the Gulf floor. And while the dispersant itself was ruled to be less toxic than the oil, the study suggests that the combination mixture of crude oil and dispersant poses a significantly greater threat to both the environment and marine life than either substance on its own. The EPA says that studies have been done on some of the 57 chemical agents found in dispersants, but they also acknowledge that no long-term studies have been conducted on the exposure to these chemicals in quantities as large as were poured into the Gulf.

[Overseas]

1. K&R.

[lonestarnot]

2. How they came to the conclussion that poison stew was just fine and dandy is more than troubling.