Scientists Recruited to Determine Long-Term Effects of "Vanished" Dispersant Corexit

Coast Guard Collecting Water Samples Using dispersants meant less damage to the Gulf from oil but dealing with the unknown effects of the chemicals themselves was inevitable. BP used up to 2 million gallons of two types of a toxic chemical dispersant called Corexit to clean the Gulf but now they are all but vanished. NPR quoted a chemist from EPA:

"What we do know right now is this: we aren't seeing dispersants in our monitoring results," said Paul Anastas, a chemist at the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has looked in deep water, as well as along the Gulf coastline -- and no dispersants showed up.

EPA tests showed dispersants to be less toxic than the oil itself and the combination of dispersant and oil to be no more toxic than the oil itself. However, this situation is unprecedented in terms of the amount of dispersant used and the size of the waters affected. Questions about the affects on marine wildlife and the environment abound including those about the reproductive and immune systems of Gulf wildlife. BP and the EPA have hired a team of marine scientists to figure out answers to these and other questions. Also from NPR:

"We cannot just sweep this under the rug and say 'OK, we're collecting all the oil and it's going away. We don't have that much to worry about any more,'" says Dana Wetzel, a chemist who's spent years studying dispersants at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida. "I contend that that's so absolutely wrong."

Read the full story.

Listen to the story below:

Was the decision to use dispersants the right one?

image: Deepwater Horizon Response