Hiding the crude--a bubbly stew of oil and COREXIT
So we never got a chance to corral some crude, but gave it a go on the oily dispersant. It worked. We took some video, and the company will make it available. The bottom line is that we deployed 800 feet in one minute and fifty-seven seconds going at a slow speed. The oil/dispersant stayed inside the barrier. After two minutes on the water the material was saturated with oil. Murray put it this way.
"You have just contained an area of crap that will hit a beach somewhere."
Glenn Murray dipping ROC Boom into dispersant/oil mixture
Boom deployment/Still frame from video
As the film laminate landed in the water, the friction of the water held the oil/dispersant mixture in place. While our boat circled the perimeter of the oily mixture, the film laminate continuously streamed from the dispenser and contained the mess. So, we proved that oil does adhere to the ROC Boom. The scary part is what lies below the surface.
Corexit 9527 has been designated a "chronic and acute health hazard" by the EPA. It is made with 2-butoxyethanol, a highly toxic chemical that has long been linked to the health problems of cleanup crews who worked on the Exxon Valdez spill. On the toxicity question, you could hardly find a more dangerous combination of poisons to dump into the Gulf of Mexico than what has been revealed in Corexit. The answers are currently unknown, which is exactly why it is so inexcusable that Nalco and the oil industry giants would for so long refuse to disclose the chemical ingredients they're dumping into the Gulf of Mexico in huge quantities (over a million gallons dumped into the ocean to date).
It's hard to believe this COREXIT is that bad, but I believe it now after lying in bed all day with all of the symptoms. Moran and I decided no more exposure. We are not martyrs, nor are we willing to be victims. The sea life and the people on the Gulf have no choice in the matter.
As for BP and their spin and refusal to consider thinking outside of the box with new and better ways of mitigating the river of oil, well, Diel put it this way.
"Why bother? BP just wants it to go away. Dispersants will hide it, but it will never go away once it is in the water column."
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