EPA May Face Suit Over Use of Dispersants in Gulf Oil Spill
By Jenna Greene
The National Law Journal
June 03, 2010
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is facing a potential suit by the Center for Biological Diversity for allowing the use of dispersants in an attempt to limit damage in the Gulf of Mexico from the BP oil spill.
Dispersants are used to break down oil in the slick by isolating it into very small droplets, which in theory allows the oil to be eaten by micro-organisms.
But the Center for Biological Diversity objects that the EPA allowed BP to pump nearly 1 million gallons of dispersants into the gulf without ensuring that the chemicals will not harm endangered species and their habitats.
The group Wednesday sent the EPA an official notice of its intent to sue. The letter requests that the agency, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, immediately study the effects of dispersants on species such as sea turtles, sperm whales, piping plovers and corals and incorporate this knowledge into oil-spill response efforts.
"The Gulf of Mexico has become Frankenstein's laboratory for BP's enormous, uncontrolled experiment in flooding the ocean with toxic chemicals," said Andrea Treece, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity in a statement. "The fact that no one in the federal government ever required that these chemicals be proven safe for this sort of use before they were set loose on the environment is inexcusable."
According to the group, studies have found that oil dispersed by Corexit 9527 (one of the formulations used by BP) damages the insulating properties of seabird feathers more than untreated oil, making the birds more susceptible to hypothermia and death.
The product is banned in the United Kingdom.
At a news conference in Louisiana, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson on May 24 said the agency was not prepared to ban Corexit. "We should minimize it," she said, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "If I saw today any indication that that material was toxic, if I saw that we were having biodegradation, if I saw data, if I had science that told me that we were having an impact that was worse than allowing this material to just pile up on the surface, then I would stop it."
For more coverage, see The National Law Journal's Gulf Spill Scorecard. |
