Mobile Baykeeper, the local nonprofit focused on protecting Mobile Bay and its watershed, has come out against the continued use of the chemical dispersant Corexit in the federal response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, arguing regulators moved too fast without fully understanding the product’s environmental effects.
The organization’s core objection centers on how dispersants work. Rather than removing oil from the Gulf, Corexit breaks it into smaller droplets that spread through the water column instead of concentrating at the surface. Mobile Baykeeper contends that approach can make both shoreline protection and on-water oil recovery more difficult, even as it keeps oil from washing ashore in the most visible, photographed slicks.
A Process Without an Exit
Mobile Baykeeper has also criticized the federal system for approving dispersants for use during spill response, saying the process that allows a chemical like Corexit onto an approved list has no corresponding mechanism to remove it if new evidence of harm emerges. In the group’s view, that one-way approval structure leaves regulators with limited options if the environmental costs of a dispersant turn out to outweigh its benefits.
Call to Action
The organization urged Mobile Bay-area residents to send handwritten letters to the Environmental Protection Agency by August 1, calling on the agency to halt the use of Corexit in the ongoing spill response. Baykeeper also encouraged residents to contact their members of Congress directly, pressing for closer scrutiny of dispersant use along the Gulf Coast.
The push reflected broader unease among Gulf Coast environmental groups during the months following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, as communities from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle weighed the tradeoffs between visible oil on beaches and the less understood, underwater effects of the chemicals used to break it up.