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Corexit
Crude Oil Dispersant
It has been confirmed that the dispersal agent being used by BP and the government is Corexit 9500, a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, IL, which in turn is owned by The Blackstone Group, who has as a member of its International Advisory Board, Lord Jacob Rothschild.
By BP’s own admission, they have released 45 million plus gallons of Corexit into the Gulf of Mexico waters. Dispersants do nothing to biodegrade oil. Biodegradation is a natural process which happens with or without application of dispersants. The only thing dispersants do is help the oil lose cohesive bond with itself and the surface, allowing it to sink out of sight. Unfortunaltely it also increases the area of the oil.
The most prevalent ingredient in Corexit is 2-Butoxyethenol. This compound chemical is especially toxic (poisonous) to the blood, kidneys, liver and the central nervous system of all mammals, including porpoises, whales, and humans. Corexit also ruptures red blood cells. Of and by itself, it causes cancer and birth defects. Oil mixed with Corexit is 11 times more lethal than oil alone.
Corexit features high in terms of toxicity and low in terms of efficacy in comparison to 18 other EPA-approved dispersants. Claiming that the chemical product is the superlative choice, BP Plc has refused demands from government and environmentalists to employ a less-toxic dispersant.
The Nalco data suggests that Corexits degradation happens from the time it hits the surface of the water to a depth of 10 meters (32 feet). Processes differ at different temperatures and pressures. Can Nalco’s data be trusted to remain accurate at a depth of 5000 feet?
A press release closed with a section on “Application” which states that Corexit should be sprayed from planes and boats. Nowhere does it recommend dumping gallons of Corexit a mile below the surface.
British Petroleum has openly admitted that they have used over 45 million gallons of dispersant in the Gulf of Mexico. The same chemicals that have been banned in the UK for over ten years! The active ingredient in this pesticide is a known neurotoxin that is acutely toxic to both human and aquatic life, causes cancer, and causes damage to internal organs such as the liver and kidneys simply by absorbing it through the skin and cay cause reproductive side effects.
BP is openly using a toxic chemical against the United States! These chemicals alone have the very real possibility of causing massive evacuations and the EPA KNOWS that these chemicals are highly toxic. The EPA and British Petroleum are knowingly causing this oil spill to be potentially one hundred times worse and are participating in what can only be described as a chemical attack on the Gulf region.
BP's favorite dispersant Corexit 9500 is being sprayed at the oil gusher on the ocean floor. Corexit is also being air sprayed across hundreds of miles of oil slicks all across the gulf. There have been widespread reports of oil cleanup crews reporting various injuries including respiratory distress, dizziness and headaches.
According to the Clark and George-Ares report, Corexit mixed with the higher gulf coast water temperatures becomes even more toxic.
“Corexit has also earned the highest EPA warning label for toxicity which means the effects of the toxic chemicals to the eye are corrosive resulting in irreversible destruction of ocular tissue and other tissue with corneal involvement along with burning that can persist for more than 21 days and effects to human skin are corrosive resulting in tissue destruction into the dermis and/or scarring.”
The main ingredient of Corexit is 2-Butoxyethanol, which is known to cause human health problems that can affect everything from the liver, the central nervous system, and the kidneys. It is also known to be toxic to the blood!
Oil is toxic at 11 ppm while Corexit 9500 is toxic at only 2.61 ppm; Corexit 9500 is four times as toxic as the oil itself. Sure, a lot less of it is being introduced, but that’s still a flawed logical perspective, because it’s not a “lesser of two evils” scenario. BOTH are going into the ocean water.
A great danger involving Corexit 9500, and as outlined by Russian scientists in this report, is that with its 2.61ppm toxicity level, and when combined with the heating Gulf of Mexico waters, its molecules will be able to “phase transition” from their present liquid to a gaseous state allowing them to be absorbed into clouds and allowing their release as “toxic rain” upon all of Eastern North America.
Even worse, should a Katrina like tropical hurricane form in the Gulf of Mexico while tens of millions of gallons of Corexit 9500 are sitting on, or near, its surface the resulting “toxic rain” falling upon the North American continent could “theoretically” destroy all microbial life to any depth it reaches resulting in an “unimaginable environmental catastrophe” destroying all life forms from the “bottom of the evolutionary chart to the top.”
Note: For molecules of a liquid to evaporate, they must be located near the surface, be moving in the proper direction, and have sufficient kinetic energy to overcome liquid-phase intermolecular forces. Only a small proportion of the molecules meet these criteria, so the rate of evaporation is limited. Since the kinetic energy of a molecule is proportional to its temperature, evaporation proceeds more quickly at higher temperatures.
The lesser of two evils seems to be a product called Dispersit, manufactured by Polychem, a division of U.S. Polychemical Corporation. In comparison, water-based Dispersit is toxic at 7.9-8.2 ppm; Dispersit holds about one third of the toxicity that Corexit 9500 presents. Dispersit is a much less harmful water-based product which is both EPA approved and the U.S. Coast Guard’s NCP list. So why isn’t it being used?
On an average, Dispersit is 70% effective, and may prove 100% effective, while 9500 is an average of 50% effective, with a maximum effective use of just 55%. Corexit 9500 is a harsh petroleum-based solvent which is dangerous to people and sea life. Dispersit’s human health effect is “slight to none.” Whether or not a dispersal agent is a wise move, the question remaining unanswered is: Why is Corexit 9500 is being used at all, when the water-based Dispersit is available, markedly more effective and less toxic? Follow the money.
It may not be pretty, but if the oil makes it to the shore, it can be soaked up, cleaned up. To “disperse” it means it will NEVER be cleaned up. It will just stay out there, polluting and poisoning the ocean, her inhabitants, and all the food we take from it. It’s unwise to be using Corexit 9500 at all, but introducing it to the oil as it leaves the broken pipe is approaching madness. The oil should be contained, and what has been leaked should be allowed to come to shore where it can be removed from the ocean by less toxic means.
BP’s use of Corexit 9500 on the oil before it rises to the surface seems to be a deliberate attempt to mask the poison, to cover up that it continues to flow out from the ocean’s floor, while making it impossible to recover.
In short, BP wants to spread the toxic oil throughout the oceans, polluting everywhere, rather than allow it to be seen coming to shore where BP would have to pay for its containment and clean-up. It’s our job to keep them from getting away with sweeping this ugly mess under the surface.
The Swedish study concludes: "The studies suggest that a mixture of oil and dispersant give rise to a more toxic effect on aquatic organisms than oil and dispersants do alone... The research on toxicity of oils mixed with dispersants has, however, shown high toxicity values even when the dispersant per se was not very toxic." A report for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Division of Spill Prevention and Response concluded that Corexit actually inhibits bacterial degradation of crude oil. It may look good on the surface but it will take longer for natural bacteria to eat up the crude oil.
Many of the region's important organisms, such as blue fin tuna and shrimp, use the wetlands at some point in their lifetime. Adult tuna breed during the late spring and early summer. Their eggs then float to shore and the larvae grow in the wetlands, protected from predators. Any decent chemist will tell you that surfactants, which are the primary ingredient in Corexit destroy cell membranes—including larval membranes of larval tuna eggs, shrimp and any other marine life trying to develop.
BP with the EPA's approval continues to pour Corexit into the gulf with no science to estimate the harm the gusher's load of dispersed oil will cause the water column, because they lack sufficient and fundamental data on how dispersants affect the oil, what creatures live in deepwater ecosystems, how laboratory flask toxicity tests translate to actual conditions in the ocean, and how oil and Corexit affects organisms over time.
The real problem is not the dispersants themselves but what the chemicals do to the oil. By itself, oil is more toxic than dispersants alone, but together oil and Corexit is far more toxic. We can only assume the EPA approved Corexit because they thought diluting the dispersed oil and Corexit will mitigate its increased toxicity.
EPA's crap shoot is that more toxic but significantly diluted dispersed oil/Corexit crap floating is better than concentrated oil slicks washing ashore. It's a lazy, easy and irresponsible approach. Sweden does not even allow dispersants. In case of a spill in Swedish waters, only mechanical extraction and vacuum is allowed.
Lab toxicology tests (flask tests), that are the whole foundation of Corexit's approval, neglect one variable that organisms encounter out on the ocean's surface—sunlight. Transparent organisms such as planktons and crustaceans called copepods react to ultraviolet light from the sun. The reaction promotes photochemical degradation of aromatic compounds from oil that the creatures have absorbed or swallowed. The degradation results in oxidized molecules that are more toxic than the original oil compounds.
In tests to observe this photo-enhanced toxicity, researchers have found that the toxicity under natural light can be up to 50,000 times greater than the toxicity seen in a lab. Neglecting real-world conditions, laboratory experiments could underestimate dispersed oil's toxicity.
It seems like damage brought by the oil gusher has spread way beyond the ocean, coastal areas and beaches. Collateral damage now appears to include agricultural damage way inland from the Gulf of Mexico. A mysterious "disease" has caused widespread damage to plants from weeds to farmed organic and conventionally grown crops. There is very strong suspicion that ocean winds have blown Corexit aerosol plumes or droplets and dispersants coming down in the rain have caused the unexplained widespread damage or "disease."
There is no other explanation for the crop damage. Everything points to something that has a widespread effect on plants and crops. Studies on Corexit and its effects on plants are consistent with the damage sustained in the lower Mississippi area. All the signs point to BP's use of aerosolized Corexit brought inland by the ocean winds or rain.
To treat generalized toxicity, activated charcoal mixed in water will bind up and remove thousands of chemical toxins from the body. This is what is given in the emergency room when someone overdoses on drugs, or is poisoned by chemicals.