EPA Pressures BP To Reduce Toxic DispersantBP is under pressure from the federal government to reduce the amount of a chemical it's using to disperse the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from a blown-out underwater well. BP says if it can find a less toxic alternative that is equally effective and available, it will switch to that product.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson looks at an oil sample she scooped from the water as she tours marshes affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Pass a Loutre, La.
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EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson looks at an oil sample she scooped from the water as she tours marshes affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Pass a Loutre, La.
Gerald Herbert/AP
Under increasing pressure from the federal government, oil giant BP is agreeing to reduce the amount of a chemical dispersant it is using in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP uses the dispersant Corexit to try to break up the massive amounts of oil gushing out of its blown-out well in the Gulf, but there are questions about the long-term impact of the chemical on marine wildlife and human health.
The Environmental Protection Agency raised concerns about the toxicity of Corexit last week, and told the oil company to use a different chemical agent to try to disperse the giant oil slicks.
"The answer we got back from BP, to me, seemed more like a defense of the current choice," says EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. "It reminded me a little bit of that old commercial, 'I'd rather fight than switch.' "
BP officials say their own testing finds the dispersant Corexit effective in breaking up oil and safe to aquatic life -- adding that it couldn't find large enough quantities of other dispersants to make the switch.
But Jackson isn't buying it, starting with the company's research.
A boat uses a boom and absorbent material to soak up oil in Cat Bay, near Grand Isle, La., on June 28. A tropical storm is expected to hit the Gulf and impede cleanup efforts.
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Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and wife Carole Rome Crist (right) stand with others during a Hands Across the Sand event June 26 in Pensacola, Fla. The event was staged across the nation to protest offshore oil drilling.
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Oil clouds the surface of Barataria Bay near Port Sulpher, La., on June 19.
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Workers adjust piping while drilling a relief well at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
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A dolphin rises up out of the water near Grand Terre Island off the coast of Louisiana on June 14.
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President Obama stands with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (right) and Gulfport, Miss., Mayor George Schloegel after meeting with residents affected by the oil spill.
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Crude oil washes ashore in Orange Beach, Ala., on June 12. Oil slicks, 4 to 6 inches thick in some parts, have washed up along the Alabama coast.
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A volunteer uses a toothbrush to clean an oil-covered white pelican at the Fort Jackson Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Buras, La., June 9.
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A shrimp boat skims oil from the surface of the water just off Orange Beach, Ala., as a family enjoys the surf. Oily tar balls have started washing up on Orange Beach and beaches in the western Florida panhandle.
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Sand from a dredge is pumped onto East Grand Terre Island, La., to provide a barrier against the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, June 8.
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A dead turtle floats on a pool of oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in Barataria Bay off the coast of Louisiana on June 7.
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Workers use absorbent pads to remove oil that has washed ashore from the spill in Grand Isle, La., June 6.
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Plaquemines Parish coastal zone director P.J. Hahn lifts an oil-covered pelican out of the water on Queen Bess Island in Plaquemines Parish, La., June 5.
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Heavy oil pools along the side of a boom just outside Cat Island in Grand Isle, La., June 6.
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President Obama walks alongside Grand Isle Mayor David Camardelle (from right), U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is in charge of the federal response to the spill, and Chris Camardelle after meeting with local business owners in Grand Isle, La., June 4.
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A brown pelican sits on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast after being drenched in oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, June 3.
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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announces that the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into the BP oil spill. With him, from left: Stephanie Finley and Jim Letten, U.S. attorneys for the Western District of Louisiana; Ignacia Moreno, assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division; Tony West, assistant attorney general, Civil Division; and Don Burkhalter, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi.
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The oil slick off the coast of Louisiana, seen from above.
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A worker leaves the beach in Grand Isle, La., on May 30. BP is turning to yet another mix of undersea robot maneuvers to help keep more crude oil from flowing into the Gulf.
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Protesters cover themselves with a water and paint mixture during a demonstration at a BP gas station in New York City on May 28.
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Workers clean up oil in Pass a Loutre, La. The latest attempt to plug the leak was unsuccessful.
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Residents listen to a discussion with parish officials and a BP representative on May 25 in Chalmette, La. Officials now say that it may be impossible to clean the hundreds of miles of coastal wetlands affected by the massive oil spill.
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An oil-soaked pelican takes flight after Louisiana Fish and Wildlife employees tried to corral it on an island in Barataria Bay on the coast of Louisiana. The island, which is home to hundreds of brown pelican nests as well at terns, gulls and roseate spoonbills, is impacted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill.
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A sign warns the public to stay away from the beach on Grand Isle, La. Officials closed the oil-covered beaches to the public indefinitely on Saturday.
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Pelican eggs stained with oil sit in a nest on an island in Barataria Bay on May 22.
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A bird flies over oil that has collected on wetlands on Elmer's Island in Grand Isle, La., May 20. The oil came inland despite oil booms that were placed at the wetlands' mouth on the Gulf of Mexico.
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Members of the Louisiana National Guard build a land bridge at the mouth of wetlands on Elmer's Island.
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The hands of boat captain Preston Morris are covered in oil after collecting surface samples from the marsh of Pass a Loutre, La., on May 19.
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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (center) and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser (right) tour the oil-impacted marsh of Pass a Loutre, La. "This is the heavy oil that everyone's been fearing that is here now," said Jindal.
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BP Chairman and President Lamar McKay (left), with Transocean President and CEO Steven Newman (center) and Applied Science Associates Principal Deborah French McCay, testifies during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing May 18 on response efforts to the Gulf Coast oil spill.
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This undated frame grab image received from BP and provided by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee shows details of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has agreed to display a live video feed of the oil gusher on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee's website beginning Thursday evening.
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President Obama speaks with local fishermen about how they are affected by the oil spill in Venice, La., on May 2.
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Danene Birtell with Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research tends to a Northern Gannet in Fort Jackson, La., on April 30. The bird, normally white when full grown, is covered in oil from the oil spill.
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Since the explosion, a third oil leak has been discovered in the blown-out well.
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In this aerial photo taken April 21 more than 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns.
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Tendrils of oil mar the waters of the Gulf of Mexico in this satellite image taken Monday. An estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day are seeping into the Gulf, after an explosion last week on a drilling rig about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.
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"We'll do it ourselves. We have a lab, EPA does, in Gulf Breeze, Fla., and we're going to set up a series of toxicity tests, biodegredation tests, to look at what's going on out there now and to look at whether there's a better choice out there," Jackson says.
BP has been using unprecedented amounts of Corexit in the Gulf -- tens or thousands of gallons every day for more than a month now. But not much is known about the dispersant's long-term effects.
Jackson says she met Sunday night with BP officials in southern Louisiana to step up the pressure and get the company to scale back its use of the chemical.
"I think we should see 50 to 75, maybe 80 percent reduction in the amount of dispersant used while we continue to do these tests over the next days," she says.
Jackson says BP will reduce the use of the dispersant on the water surface mostly. She says injecting it underwater into the stream of oil spewing from the blown-out well head has shown to be more effective and less toxic.
BP's Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles, in a conference call with reporters Monday, appeared to be more willing to reduce the use of Corexit.
"As we stated to them [EPA], if we can find an alternative which is less toxic and as effective and as available -- because many of these are not available in the quantities required -- but if it's available we will switch to that product," Suttles said.
This flare-up with EPA is one of several such instances in recent days.
Parish leaders in southern Louisiana say the company is responding too slowly to getting booms out to protect marshes, wetlands, estuaries and islands.
They say BP, which is paying for and thus coordinating the response, sometimes disagrees with local leaders over which islands and wetlands to protect.
David Carmadelle, mayor of the oil-inundated community of Grand Isle, says BP's decisions when deploying booms are sometimes puzzling.
"They activated 11 fishermen day before yesterday from Grand Isle, sent them all the way here to Venice to get booms when we got booms in Grand Isle. This is the kind of stuff we have to go through," he says.
Everyone, from local fishermen to Gov. Bobby Jindal, appears to be getting more and more frustrated with BP.
"They will be held accountable," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who visited the Gulf Coast on Monday. "We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done."
But Salazar's suggestion over the weekend that BP might be pushed out of the way if it can't get the job done, appears now to be little more than hyperbole.
At the White House on Monday, Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen, who is leading the administration's response, said the government doesn't have much choice but to stick with BP.
"To push BP out of the way would raise a question: to replace them with what?" he said.
Allen defended BP, saying he's satisfied with the coordination and that the company is exhausting every technical means possible to cap the blown-out well and contain the oil.
