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From Page One Documents indicate heavy use of dispersants in gulf oil disaster dispersants from A1
Allen said that on some days the amount of oil on the surface justified a “tactical” decision, by on-scene Coast Guard command- ers, to spray some dispersants. “There’s a dynamic tension that
goes on when you’re managing an incident that has no precedent,” Allen said. “You establish general rules and guidelines, but know- ing that the people on scene have the information” means trusting them to make decisions, he said. In the end, Allen said: “You can quibble on the semantics related to ‘rare.’ I like to focus on the ef- fects we achieved” by dispersing the oil. Officials have said that, in the days since the gusher was stopped, thick sheets of oil have nearly disappeared from the gulf’s surface. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jack- son conceded that there had been “frustration in the field” from EPA officials about the waivers. But Jackson said it was partly al- leviated June 22, nearly a month after the order was issued, when Coast Guard officials began giv- ing the EPA a greater role in the discussions over whether to ap- prove dispersant use. “EPA may not have concurred
with every single waiver,” Jackson said. But, she said, the Coast Guard had the ultimate say: “The final decision-making rests with the federal on-scene coordinator. That’s where the judgment, the ultimate decision-making ability, had to lie.” The dispersants — variants of a
Nalco product called Corexit — break up the oil, acting like a de- tergent on kitchen grease. They are intended to keep the oil from reaching shore in large sheets and to make it easier for microbes to consume the oil underwater. Charles M. Pajor, a Nalco
spokesman, said that the amount of dispersant the company rec- ommends depends on the acreage sprayed and the amount of oil spilled, with variations for oil quality, degree of weathering, temperature and thickness. Typ- ically, two to 10 gallons per acre are used or one gallon for every 10 to 50 gallons of oil, Pajor said. Similar dispersants were used
after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989, and afterward government officials vowed to study their environmental effects more carefully. But urgency fad- ed, research dollars evaporated, and when this spill arrived, the questions were still unanswered. Now, scientists say, it’s difficult to tell what the added use of dis- persants permitted by the Coast Guard meant for the gulf. The chemicals may have helped break up some oil before it reached sen- sitive marshes along the Louisi- ana coast. But it also may have poisoned ecosystems offshore, helped deplete underwater oxy- gen and sent oil swirling through the open-water habitats of fish and coral. “It’s still a trade-off. I mean,
you’re using dispersants to pro- tect the shoreline, and you’re go- ing to be killing things in the wa- ter column,” said Carys Mitchel- more, a professor at the University of Maryland. By using more dispersants, Mitchelmore said, “you’re just going to be kill- ing more things in the water col- umn.” In May, under pressure from
environmental groups, the EPA and the Coast Guard issued a di- rective to BP, ordering the com- pany to “eliminate” the use of dis- persants on the surface. The di- rective said BP could seek an exemption in rare cases when other cleanup methods were not feasible. The government allowed BP to continue injecting dispersants below the surface, as oil leaked from the well on the gulf floor. Their logic was that the chemicals could be used more efficiently un- derwater, where the gushing of BP’s well provided a turbulence that helped them work.
“Because so much is still un- known about the potential im- pact of dispersants, BP should use no more dispersant than is neces- sary,” Jackson wrote in a letter to BP that day.
But, over the next nine days, BP made daily waiver requests for the use of surface dispersants. Ev- ery day the Coast Guard gave its approval. On May 28, for in- stance, BP sprayed 6,400 gallons of dispersant on the surface, say- ing it was needed to control dan- gerous fumes — volatile organic compounds — where rig and plat- form workers were trying to get the blowout under control. In early June, federal docu- ments show, an EPA official raised concerns about the ease with which BP was obtaining waivers. “The approval process appears to be somewhat pro forma, and not as rigorous as EPA desires,” the official wrote, according to a Coast Guard memo that quoted him. It said BP “must be put on notice that the request for exemp-
on
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tions cannot be presumed to be approved at the point they are submitted.” Two weeks later, on June 22,
Jackson said that the Coast Guard had begun giving her agency a
greater role in the approval of dis- persant use. But federal docu- ments show that the chemicals were still being used, sometimes more than 10,000 gallons a day. A federal official said the last sur-
face dispersants were sprayed July 19. Scott Dean, a BP spokesman, said that his company had been careful to obtain federal permis- sion before using dispersants on the ocean’s surface. “Since the very beginning, BP has operated in a unified com- mand and we have always worked hand in hand with the Coast Guard and EPA on dispersants,” Dean said, “and we’ve complied
with EPA requests regarding dis- persants.” He added that “dis- persants are an EPA-approved and recognized tool in fighting oil spills.”
Aaron Viles, at the Louisiana- based Gulf Restoration Network, said the Obama administration gave the impression of control- ling the controversial dispersants while allowing their use to con- tinue. The result, he said, was that more oil sank out of sight and out
of reach of the cleanup operation. “Clearly, you know, there was a bit of a show here,” Viles said. “Whether EPA wasn’t serious, or the Coast Guard didn’t care, they kept cranking, and kept exposing the Gulf of Mexico to this giant science experiment.”
mufsons@washpost.com fahrenthold@washpost.com
Staff writer Carol Leonnig contributed to this report.
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