Links
BP spread dispersant far beyond mandate
The Gulf of Mexico has been "carpet- bombed" with a highly toxic chemical dispersant for months on end, breaking official guidelines issued in the aftermath of April's Deepwater Horizon disaster which stated that BP should use the substance only in "extremely rare" cases, according to documents released by a US House of Representatives committee at the weekend.
BP recently admitted spraying 1.8 million gallons (about 6.8 million liters) of Corexit on the ocean during its battle to limit the damage from what is the costliest spill in its industry's history.
However, the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee said that "the validity of those figures is now in question", after learning that the US Coast Guard fast-tracked permits for the oil company to use the substance on at least 74 occasions.
"BP carpet-bombed the ocean with these chemicals, and the Coast Guard allowed them to get away with it," said the committee's chairman, Edward Markey. "[They are] a toxic stew of chemicals, oil and gas, with impacts that are not well understood... After we discovered how toxic these chemicals really are, they had no business being spread across the Gulf in this manner."