MICHAEL DeMOCKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE A hermit crab scuttles through clumps of oil from the spill in a tidal pool near a breakwater in Grand Isle on Friday, May 21, 2010.

What is BP doing to the ocean off the coast of the U.S.?  You could see for yourself at the BP live spill feeds.    The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is hosting the live video feed of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.  (Unfortunately, at the moment none of the live feeds seem to be working).

On May 22, BP Responded to the EPA’s Directive on Dispersants.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released BP’s response to EPA’s directive on dispersants. EPA’s directive to BP required them to evaluate available, pre-approved dispersants for toxicity and effectiveness and report back to EPA within 24 hours. After receiving their response late Thursday night, EPA immediately called a meeting with BP to discuss the issue on Friday, May 21. EPA will continue to work over the next 48 hours to ensure BP is complying with the directive.

BP’s response to EPA’s directive, as well as the directive itself, can be found here.

Basically, BP cannot give the EPA an answer as to toxicity, biodegradability and how long the chemicals will persist in the environment, because the ingredients of the chemical mixtures are “proprietary” — secret.

BP and several of the dispersant manufacturers have claimed some sections of BP’s response contain confidential business information (CBI). By law, CBI cannot be immediately made public except with the company’s permission. EPA challenged these companies to make more information public and, as a result, several portions of the letter can now be made public. EPA is currently evaluating all legal options to ensure that the remaining redacted information is released to the public. EPA continues to strongly urge these companies to voluntarily make this information public so Americans can get a full picture of the potential environmental impact of these alternative dispersants.

The EPA’s (unhelpful and not informative) website on the on-going Gulf Leak is here. You can probably get more information from the New Orlean’s NOLA website.  They sum it up here.

“BP replied that it was concerned that Sea Brat No. 4, the only other federally approved dispersant available in sufficient quantity, “contains a small amount of a chemical that may degrade to a nonylphenol,” one of a group of chemicals that “have been identified by various government agencies as potential endocrine disruptors, and as chemicals that may persist in the environment for a period of years.”

BP is dumping from 70,000 – 50,000 gallons of various “proprietary” chemicals in the ocean per day. This can’t possibly be good for sea life, or a good way to deal with the leak, but at the moment it’s about all they are doing.  When is the U.S. government going to actually take control of this [...]