How do you contain an oil spill when the oil continues to gush at an enormous rate from a well under 5,000 feet of water? Booms* aren't doing much to prevent the slick from reaching shore; surface dispersants can only do so much. But now, the Times reports, officials are reporting success with new underwater dispersants.
Officials said that in two tests, that method appeared to be keeping crude oil from rising to the surface. They said that the procedure could be used more frequently once evaluations of its impact on the deepwater ecology were completed.Those experiments at the wellhead of the collapsed Deepwater Horizon oil rig were just one sign of the frantic efforts to contain the estimated 210,000 gallons a day still leaking 11 days after the rig exploded and sank.
Dispersants are chemicals which are no better for fish and other wildlife than the oil itself. It's a trade-off we're going to have to get used to as long as we cling to unlimited driving and handy plastics.
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*The Times also notes onshore resentment at the federal government for not getting enough booms into the Gulf in time. Of course, this takes us right back to the ambivalence about government spending. When there's no oil spill, spending money on a huge supply of oil containment booms seems as frivolous as spending it on a bridge to nowhere. And it's so easy to assign blame to everyone but oneself. Will we ever learn? Doesn't look like it.
