Anyone else getting a bad feeling about the effect of these dispersant's 5 years from now?

[KansasVoter]

This seems like one of those chemicals that will be causing issues in about 5 years that no one realized until it is too late.

Anyone know if these have even had toxicology studies done on them?

[elocs]

1. I'm having bad feelings so often now that I don't know how to sort them out.

Although I hope they never do a toxicology study on Preparation H.

[tularetom]

2. What could possibly go wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences

Actually I guarantee that there will be adverse impacts to marine life in the gulf 5 years from now (if indeed there is any marine life left).

[Celebration]

3. microbes and bioremediation should be used instead

Please contact the White House about this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8491215

[annabanana]

6. That would be a SMART way to approach the mess, so,

. . .they won't

[izquierdista]

4. No

They will decompose long before the rest of the oil. The detergent in the dispersant is mitigating the problem significantly now. Without it, there would be a lot more on the surface, washing up on beaches. Unfortunately, the detergent is suspended in some carriers that are totally inappropriate for the size of this spill. They are adding enormous quantities of polyether and mineral spirits that are in the Corexit formulation. This is because they want a liquid formulation to spread by air instead of working with detergent in its pure form, a powder. The toxicology of the polyethers and mineral spirits is pretty simple and you can look at the MSDS for them. The problem with them is mostly from acute exposure, but since they readily oxidize, they won't hang around in the environment long, and the long term effects will be small.

Had I been on the expert panel, I would have strongly discouraged this Corexit formulation and the undersea injection of detergent, as they are just making a big mess bigger. From the beginning, they needed tankers and oil/water phase separators (like Costner's) to capture as much as they could, and then, only then, should they have applied detergent at the surface to oil drifting away from the capture zone.

It's clear that from the beginning they were winging it, their spill plan having been cribbed from another one they had to write for drilling in the Arctic. There is a right way, along with several wrong ways of doing anything. BP will eventually figure out the right way, however it seems they have to try every wrong way first.

[annabanana]

5. Naw.. But then, I look FORWARD to broiled Blinky

yumyum eattumup

[XanaDUer]

7. Yup.

It ain't good.

[jgraz]

8. There'll be a spike in cancers around the Gulf coast and BP will deny everything

More likely than not, there's a memo in Tony Hayward's inbox describing this strategy in detail.