We can see the oil on the water, but what's in the air?

[Aaria]

They're talk-in about the workers getting sick on the clean up boats and having to return to the shore. I believe that I've heard dioxins are the cause or at least present in air around the oil slicks. Now what's going to happen over time as this poison is blown over the land? You can get a slight wiff of oil on the shore, and this is going to cause a lot of problems down the line as it settles out and who knows how long it's going to be around. What's to much for pollinators to handle, what will be absorbed into the food chain, how much is to much for children? Our addiction to oil is really killing us.

[izquierdista]

1. The chemistry answer

The illnesses seem typical for inhaling light hydrocarbons. Considering that the dispersant being sprayed is made of light hydrocarbons (petroleum distillate), it's only making it worse in the air column above the area where it is applied. Dioxins are not present in the crude oil as is, they are being formed when the oil is burned; it is a product of incomplete combustion of the oil. Getting the oil to burn completely as it is floating on water is practically impossible. It is going to give off lots of harmful combustion by products such as carbon monoxide, dioxins, and soot, but burning it is a net plus since it gets rid of more mass of toxic volatile fractions than it leaves behind.

What's left after the crude burns is a bigger environmental problem -- the heavier fractions and the tars. They will have to be broken down by organisms in the environment. Once it is broken down, it can enter the food chain in a normal way, like other rotted organic matter.