Gulf Oil: An Experiment in the Gulf - Part 2

While the BP well was still gushing, the Obama administration issued an order that limited the spreading of controversial dispersant chemicals on the Gulf of Mexico's surface. Their use, officials said, should be restricted to "rare cases."

  WaPo

And you know where that went. The WH could have guessed, too. Probably did.

Despite the order -- and concerns about the environmental effects of the dispersants -- the Coast Guard granted requests to use them 74 times over 54 days, and to use them on the surface and deep underwater at the well site. The Coast Guard approved every request submitted by BP.

[...]

In an interview Saturday, [Coast Guard Adm. Thad] Allen defended the decisions to grant the waivers, saying that overall use of dispersants declined sharply after that May 26 order to limit their use. The total use of dispersants underwater and on the surface declined about 72 percent from its peak, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

[...]

[Still] sometimes more than 10,000 gallons a day.

It boggles the mind to think how much they used before they brought it down 72 percent.

A federal official said the last surface dispersants were sprayed July 19.

[...]

In the end, Allen said: "You can quibble on the semantics related to 'rare.' I like to focus on the effects we achieved" by dispersing the oil.

This is the hemorrhagic toxin that's killing or making sick everything from Louisiana possibly to Canada.

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 faded, research dollars evaporated, and when this spill arrived, the questions were still unanswered.

[...]

"Clearly, you know, there was a bit of a show here," [Aaron Viles, at the Louisiana-based Gulf Restoration Network] 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."

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.