Is Corexit9500 a Safe Chemical?
BP advised the EPA it would be using Corexit9500 as a "dispersant."
The safety of using chemicals along the shore is tested using a standard that checks if the chemical will kill the small fish that feed the top of the food chains.
The standard fish used in such testing is a small fish with tolerance for both fresh and salt water, the "inland silverside."
At 3 parts per million exposure of Corexit9500 plus Gulf light crude, the inland silverside, a major food supply for fish that people eat, dies in a week.
Some experiments done by independent scientists after the Valdez disaster showed that the plankton along the Bay of Valdez shoreline was affected in different ways by Corexit. Some of the effect appeared positive. The conclusion of the researchers was that Corexit temporarily increased the availability of calcium inside the plant cell.
Researchers in human health can point to some of the debilitating drug effects of tobacco being cuased by nicotine having this same effect in the human brain. There has never been adequate research done showing what damage happens to fish who eat this plankton, but it was noted for years after the Valdez disaster that salmon from the area were prone to tissue damage that made much of the meat inedible.
Many nations have outlawed Corexit as a petroleum dispersant. The USA has not. Manufacturers od cleaner, more ecologicxally sound dispersants are located in Houston or nearby, but none of them have a former BP executive as senior staff. The manufacturer of Corexit does.
What conclusions can be drawn? One gallon of spilled crude mixed with enough Corexit9500 to let admixture begin, so that the oil drops out of visibility below the surface and interacts with plankton, will cuase 3 million gallons of water to become a toxic location for the fish at the bottom of the food chain. That toxicity will concentrate on its way up the food chain, so that large fish and seabirds will accumulate the toxins in their tissues. Previous experience with petrotoxins like DDT have informed the world of the special care that needs to be taken to balance an emergency against the earth's future, rather than this year's profits.
The toxic effects of BP's choices leading up to the MC252 blowout will be felt at the grocery store, restaurant, health care center, savings rate and quality of life for years to come.
A critical, but under-appreciated paret of the cost will come from BP's decisions to ignore the EPA and proceed with Corexit.
Unless shomething is shot into outer space, or is dense enuff to fall thru the earth's crust on the sea bed, nothing ever "goes away." Like ripples on a pond, effects spread wider and wider, until they are below the threshhold of perception. Below that threshhold, chemical reactions continue to occur. If this were not true, there would be no such thing as cancer.