Environmental Engineer: Dispersants Have to Stop Now

Joe Taylor, an environmental engineer in Daphne, says BP's use of the dispersant Corexit is wrong, and they will kill the Gulf of Mexico. And Taylor has the scientific knowledge to back up his claim. He's been cleaning up petroleum contamination for many years.

He says the sulfur and sulfuric acid based dispersant makes the oil spewing into the gulf sink, where its impossible to clean up--and where it depletes oxygen levels under the water, killing plankton and everything above plankton in the food chain. "Corexit is toxic, petroleum is toxic, and its depleting the oxygen levels," he says.

What's worse says Taylor, is that if he knows this information, so does BP. "They have a lot of chemists who are a lot smarter than I am, and they know this," he says.

Taylor says Corexit is a very good dispersant, but its being used by BP the wrong way. He says using it on the bulk of the crude bubbling out of the gulf is not what it was meant to do. Their efforts should be letting the oil rise to the surface, then skimming and collecting as much as possible. He says the dispersant should be used on what's left.

Taylor says there are several other products that are bio-friendly and work well with bacteria that naturally eat oil. But Corexit is killing those bacteria too. He says the dispersant Biosolve is bio-friendly and could even be used on the beaches. He said it would separate the oil from the sand, then a spray of oil-eating bacteria could be laid down to ingest the solid oil that is left.

Unfortunately, like so many others, Taylor has had a hard time getting the ear of any decision makers at BP. He vows to keep trying.