Dispersant-oil mix highly toxic in BP spill

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An oil-stained beach in Pensacola, Fla.

The dispersant used after the massive oil spill in the Gulf in 2010 has been found to be highly toxic when mixed with the oil it was intended to disperse.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster released millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and another 2 million gallons of the dispersant Corexit was used to help with cleanup.

But in a lab test published in the journal Environmental Pollution, oil from the spill and Corexit were mixed and were found to be highly toxic to microscopic and near-microscopic life forms that form the basis of the ocean’s food web.

The Georgia Tech study found the oil-dispersant mix was up to 52 times more toxic than the oil alone.

See the story at Discovery News.