has the EPA been completely compromised? are they capable of regulating anything?

[spanone]

i wonder....


BP was OK to use dispersants, EPA insists

NEW ORLEANS — Responding to a congressional report critical of BP's use of chemical dispersants on the Gulf spill, the Environmental Protection Agency said Sunday that while it didn't agree with every waiver given to BP it believes that dispersants are appropriate and cited a sharp drop in BP's use.

"While EPA may not have concurred with every individual waiver granted by the federal on-scene coordinator, the agency believes dispersant use has been an essential tool in mitigating this spill's impact, preventing millions of gallons of oil from doing even more damage to sensitive marshes, wetlands and beaches and the economy of the Gulf coast," the agency said in a statement.

It added that BP also slashed its use of dispersants by 72 percent through mid-July, when engineers placed a cap on the leaking well.

The Coast Guard routinely approved BP requests to use thousands of gallons of chemicals per day to break up the oil, despite a federal directive to use the dispersant rarely, congressional investigators said Saturday.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., released a letter that said instead of complying with the EPA restriction, "BP often carpet bombed the ocean with these chemicals and the Coast Guard allowed them to do it."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38511495/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf/

[benld74]

1. Since Bush Administration, The EPA can't seem to find their hands with their ass!

[xchrom]

2. I have very dear friends who are scientists there.

My understanding is that it isn't good.

That haven't done serious reports on
The immuno-toxicity of all kinds of events going
Back years.

The problems START with repuke admins but
Certainly precede bush.
Though any lab managers appointed by his admin
Must be considered suspect.

The scientists want to do their jobs
But are not able.

[Recursion]

3. It sounds like a Sophie's Choice kind of thing

Either poison the Gulf with dispersants or lose the wetlands to the oil. And either course had the option of losing both. Dispersed and emulsified oil gets eaten up by bacteria more quickly, but you've added toxins in the dispersent.

[intheflow]

5. The toxins are worse.

Because they're invisible and there for both more insidious and more easily ignored as a definable public health threat by politicians. So BP gets off relatively scott-free. Because how can you pin some invisible illness on poor little them who did so much to get rid of the oil?
:nopity:

[DCBob]

6. probably alot of Gulf coast residents would disagree with you on that.

but depends on what the alternative would have been.. some thought the beaches would be blackened and the wetlands ruined with dead animals everywhere. That would have been a catatrophic ecologic and economic disaster. But clearly there is an issue with toxins in the dispersant's and we really dont know for sure how that is all going to play out.

[intheflow]

7. I agree many Coastal residents wouldn't agree with me.

I lived in Biloxi for two years after Katrina. Public notices about, say, water contamination from an Agent Orange clean-up site by the SeaBee base, were one short paragraph blurbs deep inside the Sun-Herald pages, and not on any local tv news at all. Between the CM and the fact that so many people on the Coast have strong oil connections, it's not surprising few people even know enough to agree with me on the subject. But just because people don't know or acknowledge something doesn't mean it's not real.


“People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media.” - Ted Koppel

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

[DCBob]

19. So If the gusher starts gushing again you would recommend no disperant...

and let the beaches get oiled and wetlands destroyed. I dont think that's wise.

[intheflow]

20. I think the answer is to end off shore drilling altogether.

And I don't think the antidote to poison is more poison. Either way the beaches and wetlands get destroyed, why add an extra layer of toxins to the problem?

[DCBob]

22. "Either way the beaches and wetlands get destroyed" huh??

That makes no sense whatsoever. The beaches and wetlands are not destroyed.

[intheflow]

24. Tell it to the pelicans, turtles and dolphins. n/t

[cornermouse]

18. They'll be able to drag this out in the courts for years.

[Oregone]

4. When the capitalists have nothing left to buy, they buy the government

Regulating capitalism...lol

[Odin2005]

10. +1,000,000,000,000,000,000

[Scruffy1]

17. They are the government-not the people

[Starry Messenger]

23. +

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. What if it turns out the use of dispersants was a good idea?

Will all the fearmongers apologize?

[Odin2005]

11. What if it turns out that the moon is made out of green cheese?

[Johonny]

12. I believe fearmongers have only two answers

a) we were right

b) Your data shows we were wrong, OMG they got to you too.

[Orsino]

13. I think the onus is on the folks who dumped the poison in the water...

...and that they should apologize daily, right up until a few decades of peer-reviewed data confirms the goodness of the idea.

And they would still be responsible for all the harm they did, whether or not the cure was worse than the disease. They need to keep apologizing for forcing this false choice on us all.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. A few decades, eh?

Should be enough time for the fearmongers to dodge the whole issue.

[Orsino]

15. Should be time enough to figure out where the dispersant and oil went...

...and to see how many things in the Gulf are still alive, and how healthy.

[Odin2005]

9. Google "Regulatory Capture"

As long as our government is corrupted by corporate money "regulation" will continue to serve corporate interests (such as screwing over small businesses with unnecessary regulations that are too expensive for many small businesses) rather than actually serve the public interest. Many of our regulations are for suppressing small businesses and any positive effects are incidental side effects.

[Radical Activist]

16. EPA is deeply compromised.

A lot of good careerists left during the Bush years. Industry cronies remain in the bureaucracy. It needs the kind of house cleaning that's happening at MMS.

[lonestarnot]

21. Solvent swimmers at the ready.