In Louisiana, remnants of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is washing up on shore in the form of tarballs that are heavily laced with Corexit. A representative from the Louisiana state Wildlife and Fisheries Department remarked that a “large mat of tar on one beach and concentrations of tar balls on adjacent beaches.”
Researchers from the UN-sponsored Greenpeace have taken samples along the affected beaches in the Bin Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama. It is estimated that 1 million barrels of oil remain at the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico, left behind by the BPDH oil spill.
To aid in the cleaning of the spill, BP authorized the use of Corexit. The chemical is touted as being a dispersant that breaks up the oil into bio-degradable droplets that will “immediately sink below the surface” reducing the oil’s exposure to surrounding wildlife and exposure to humans.
Corexit was found to be deadly and its use in the Gulf was directly causational to the plankton, fish, birds and wildlife. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated Corexit’s use in oil spill clean-up is a “trade-off to lessen the overall environmental impact.”
This trade-off infiltrated beaches and coastlines from Louisiana to Florida and made the regions completely toxic. After some time, and contamination of Corexit in the natural environment, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered BP to use an alternative asserting that corexit was too poisonous.
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