By Jon Hood
ConsumerAffairs.com
June 18, 2010
The dispersant BP is using to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf is actually more toxic than the oil itself, a Louisiana class action lawsuit claims. In an unrelated filing, Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell filed a brief asking that consolidated cases stemming from the Deepwater Horizon explosion be heard in the Eastern District of Louisiana federal court.
The dispersant suit, filed today in a New Orleans federal court, seeks $5 million on behalf of Gulf coast residents and those working to clean up the spill. The action also targets Nalco Holding Company, the corporation that manufactures the dispersant, known as Corexit.
According to the complaint, the 1.3 million gallons of dispersant used so far have caused a toxic chemical to be a permanent part of the sea bed and food chain in the bio structure. The plaintiffs say that the chemical is actually four times more lethal than the oil itself, and that BP has allowed an even more dangerous condition to exist in the Gulf of Mexico than if the oil was allowed to float to the shoreline.
Nalco issued a press release on Thursday asserting that federal testing has concluded that the use of the COREXIT dispersant remains a safe, effective, and critical tool in mitigating additional damage in the Gulf. The statement quotes Nalco's chief technology officer, Dr. Mani Ramesh, as saying that the dispersant is safe.
The use of the dispersant has had no impact on marine life. These latest [federal] tests underscore previous findings that show COREXIT rapidly biodegrades and does not bio-accumulate, Ramesh said. The oil continues to be the primary hazard in the Gulf -- for workers, wildlife and vegetation. Dispersants have prevented more oil from reaching our shoreline.
Making it worse?
Still, a 2005 study by the National Research Council found that in some circumstances Corexit had no effect whatsoever, and occasionally even made conditions worse.
Additionally, Corexit has been banned in the United Kingdom -- where BP is based -- since 1998, when it was found hazardous to the food chain.
A May article in The New York Times reported that Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling. Specifically, the article singled out Dispersit, a competing chemical, as being almost twice as effective in cleaning up oil spills while being, at most, one-half as toxic.
And Corexit, which was used in response to the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off the coast of Alaska, has been identified as a possible contributor to serious health problems suffered by recovery workers there, the Times noted. Specifically, a number of maladies that included kidney and liver problems were thought to be connected to the chemical 2-butoxyethanol, an ingredient in Corexit 9527. Both that dispersant and an updated sibling, Corexit 9500, are being used to clean up the Gulf spill.
At least one of the plaintiffs' attorneys is suggesting that Corexit got the nod because former officials from BP and ExxonMobil sit on Nalco's board.
Basically the oil companies are selling themselves their own product, said attorney Arlen Braud. That can be the only explanation as to why they didnt use the better ones.
Caldwell's filing
In his filing with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, Caldwell said the Eastern District of Louisiana is the most appropriate venue for consolidated proceedings citing the courts proximity and connection to the disaster, as well as the convenience for affected litigants and witnesses.
The impacts from this catastrophe are, and will continue to be, most keenly felt by Louisiana's citizens including the families of those Louisiana offshore workers who lost their lives in the explosion, those who were injured, the fisherman and their families who depend on Louisiana's natural resources for a living, and the citizens who live along Louisiana's coastline, which is already fragile and disappearing at alarming rates, Caldwell said.
