BP was using the dispersants as a public relations tool, so cameras can't see the extent of the oil

[IScreamSundays]

snip>

Researcher Carys Mitchelmore of the University of Maryland agreed that there is a risk of doing more harm than good with the chemicals.

"I'm very concerned, because I don't know," she said. "There are so many unknowns. We can't see these organisms dying and dropping to the sea bed."

Mitchelmore noted that both the crude oil plume and the chemicals used to counteract it are "so hard to follow. It's much easier to see a surface slick."

Safina argued that BP was using the dispersants as a public relations tool, so cameras can't see the extent of the oil slick.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/21/gulf.oil.spill.environment/index.html?hpt=T2

[Botany]

1. with out a doubt

The dispersants turn 10,000,000 gallons of oil into 10,0000,000 gallons of oil

[lonestarnot]

2. No shit. And if they could have hung a curtain around Katrina they would have done that too!

:mad:

[chill_wind]

3. Exxon Valdez: "Kick ass and get that stuff out there. I don't care what it is."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8288487&mesg_id=8292133

[blindpig]

4. Of course

The motherfuckers don't care. They are not paid to care, they are paid to produce profits, whatever the "externals" might be.

We gotta kill Capitalism before it kills us. k&r

[Igel]

5. I side with Mitchelmore.

We don't know. We have suspicions, but we don't know.

As for the good that the dispersant does, consider this: The small drops are unlikely to go to shore and kill birds and contaminate as severely the coastal wetlands. We've heard reports of an auxilary danger: That the oil-digesting bacteria will deplete the oxygen.

If the oil disperses widely enough, the depletion of O2 will be small enough over a large area. This is good.

It's also easier for critters to avoid scattered blobs than large slicks, although I haven't heard how big the "blogs" are: It matters if they're 3 mm or 3 dm or 3 m. And the fact that there isn't a slick will help keep the phytoplankton photosynthesizing, producing O2.

On the downside, of course, is the fact that they're submerged: This prevents the volatile fractions from evaporating, which would be a good thing (or at least a less bad thing).

[gratuitous]

6. At least with the dispersants

We have the added benefit of the poisons the dispersants add to the equation, instead of just the raw crude, as bad as that is all by itself.