Dispersant is a cover up and a toxic pollutant

Turns out the Gulf of Mexico is the breeding ground for North Atlantic Tuna. Carl Safina has argues that the dispersant that BP is using to disperse the oil is part of the problem.

The dispersant they’re using is actually banned in Europe. He argues that the dispersant is part of a pattern of cover up behaviour.

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“Well, the dispersant is a toxic pollutant that has been applied in the volume of millions of gallons and I think has greatly exacerbated the situation. I think the whole idea of using a dispersant is wrong, and I think it’s part of the whole pattern of BP trying to cover up and hide the body. They don’t want us to see how much oil, so they’ve taken this oil that was concentrated at the surface and dissolved it. But when you dissolve it, it’s still there, and it actually gets more toxic, because instead of being in big blobs, it’s now dissolved and can get across the gills, get into the mouths of animals. The water below the floating oil was water. Now it’s this toxic soup. So I think that in this whole pattern of BP trying to not let people know what’s going on, the idea of disperse the oil is a way of just hiding the body. But it actually makes the oil more toxic, and it adds this incredible amount of toxic pollutant in the dispersant itself.” – CARL SAFINA

https://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/20/a_sea_in_flames_ecologist_carl