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February 2014

Vol. 19, No. 7 Week of February 16, 2014

EPA pressed on oil spill dispersants product list

Wesley Loy

For Petroleum News

Dozens of environmental, public policy, trade and other organizations, including several in Alaska, are putting pressure on the Obama administration to shore up regulation of dispersants used to break up oil spills.

Sixty-three organizations sent a Feb. 5 letter calling on the administration to complete work on revising the product schedule identifying allowable dispersants and other chemicals, and the volumes that may be used in given waters.

The group, in its letter, cited the heavy use of Corexit brand dispersants in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the “serious concerns” that have since been raised about the safety and wisdom of the dispersant application in that response.

Alaska organizations sign

The letter was addressed to Gina McCarthy, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and other administration officials.

Alaska organizations with signatures on the letter included Alaska’s Big Village Network, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, Alaska Marine Conservation Council and Cook Inletkeeper.

Other signees included organizations such as Greenpeace, Oceana, the Sierra Club, Public Citizen and the Louisiana Shrimp Association.

The letter said the current product schedule has an “astounding lack of information” about the listed dispersants.

The organizations want the administration to get on with rulemaking to require testing and more information for listed dispersants.

Rulemaking lag

In a press release accompanying the letter, the organizations said the EPA initiated the rulemaking more than a decade ago and promised a proposed rule by December 2012, but missed the deadline.

Now the proposal “languishes for reasons unknown to the public,” the group said.

“EPA’s rulemaking delay of over 13 years is unacceptable,” the press release said. “The need for new dispersant regulations became tragically clear during the response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. At that time, nearly 2 million gallons of dispersants were released into the ocean without prior scientific study and evaluation of whether those dispersants were safe for the Gulf of Mexico. Research in the aftermath of that disaster suggests that they were not safe. Now, EPA is working with other agencies to ‘pre-authorize’ the use of dispersants in the fisheries-rich waters of Alaska.”

The release adds: “EPA’s delay threatens harm to the coastal communities on the front lines, who suffer the direct brunt of oil spills and the use of dispersants in oil spill response with inadequate knowledge of their safety and impacts.






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