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Politics : President Barack Obama
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To: stockman_scott who wrote (77992)6/11/2010 9:26:59 AM
From: Wharf Rat  Read Replies (1) of 149317
 
FROM THE LAST THREAD

"Speaker" posted an important comment on the dispersant question, which was summarily dismissed by subsequent commenters, unfairly IMO:

"Perhaps a starting point would be the expert panel report:

noaanews.noaa.gov

crrc.unh.edu

BTW, the expert panel seems to think that crude is more toxic than the dispersant rather than the commonly reported (and erroneous) other way around."

I'm a published biologist (40 years in the business of generating new knowledge) with passable knowledge of toxicology (was a governor-appointed environmental regulator for 8 years). I wasn't going to comment on dispersants, because it's not my specialty and because toxicology is super complicated, both to address all the literature and to explain to non-scientists. Instead, I've just been sampling the original literature in background to get a sense of what's known. But in the second link above, we have an extraordinary chance to see the current view of the assembled experts on the wisdom of using dispersants on the BP DW oil spill, efficiently presented in one place. Their summary confirms what I've been reading.

P. 5 says: "It is the consensus of this group that up to this point, use of dispersants and the effects of dispersing oil into the water column has generally been less environmentally harmful than allowing the oil to migrate on the surface into the sensitive wetlands and near shore coastal habitats."

NatResDr on June 10, 2010 - 9:02pm
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