We’re only a couple of months shy of the one-year anniversary of the Gulf oil spill, but there’s still a great deal of uncertainty over just what happened—and what might be left over. As I’ve written before, recent studies seem to jibe with the government’s earlier reports suggesting that much of the oil in the Gulf has either …
dispersants
Oil Spill: What’s Going On Under the Gulf?
With the coastal cleanup apparently downshifting and BP in the final stages of preparing for a static kill operation to help close the well, we may all soon need something new to obsess/post about. But the battle on the spill is actually just shifting fronts—from the Gulf coast and wetlands that have been the focus of coverage and …
NOAA Confirms: There’s Oil Underwater
Back in mid-May, a team of scientists announced that they had discovered enormous underwater plumes of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, presumably due to the BP oil spill. While BP steadfastly maintained that almost all of the oil spewing from a partially blown well was flowing directly to the surface, where it showed up as massive slicks, the …
EPA Says Dispersants OK—But Major Questions Remain
This afternoon, on Day 72 of the Gulf spill, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the results of its first round of toxicity testing on the chemical dispersants being applied to the crude. Let’s break it down good news/bad news, because that seems kind of bloggy.
Good news: the EPA’s initial tests found that the …