Latest Environmental disasters Stories

Do manufactured dispersants interfere with microbes' natural oil-dispersing ability?To understand how the use of dispersants impacts the degradation of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a rapid response grant to scientist David Valentine of the University of California at Santa Barbara and colleagues.The massive release of oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident on April 20, 2010, has led to an unprecedented use of oil dispersants, which include a...

With oil from the big Gulf of Mexico spill threatening fragile coastal wetlands, clean-up crews are about to discover whether a combination of old and new clean-up methods will help limit the environmental damage. That's the topic of an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine.C&EN Assistant Editor Michael Torrice notes that scientists and engineers are using three basic tools to try to clean up the spill, in which millions of gallons of oil escaped...

These unique images of the Deepwater Horizon oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico were obtained by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft on May 17, 2010, at around 16:40 UTC (11:40 a.m. CDT). The top panel is a false-color image created by combining data from the red band of the 26-degree forward-viewing camera (where the oil appears dark) with the blue and green bands of the nadir (vertical-viewing) camera (where the oil appears bright). The...

STAMFORD, Conn., May 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Green Earth Technologies (Pink Sheets: GETG) announced today that they have submitted G-Marine OSC-1809 Oil & Fuel Spill Clean-UP! to the EPA as a non-toxic dispersant option for immediate consideration to emulsify and remediate the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The G-Marine Oil & Fuel Spill Clean-UP! brand is new to the marketplace and has recently been submitted to the EPA for approval, but all of the product's ingredients have...

Blizzard, McCarthy & Nabers Demands Accountability HOUSTON, May 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Tuesday, May 18, BP CEO Tony Hayward told the Associated Foreign Press "the overall environmental impact [of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill] will be very, very modest." Meanwhile, over 94,000 barrels of oil have already spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, with an additional 5,000 more leaking out each day (unofficial estimates put it as high as 70,000). Another 400,000 gallons of chemical...

After a month of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, crude oil finally spread through fragile U.S. marshlands on Thursday and now threatens Florida. The explosion of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which left 11 workers dead, ruptured an underwater well pipe and has been pouring oil into the Gulf since April 20. British Petroleum said Thursday that a tube was now siphoning away 3,000 barrels of oil a day from the leak.  However, a nightmare scene is unfolding in Louisiana's...

ATLANTA, May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- A way to deploy more oil boom to protect Gulf of Mexico shorelines from the oil spill has been found, providing the contractors manufacturing the boom can quickly hire enough workers and boat captains to install it. Oil containment boom is a floating barrier that helps keep oil from reaching the shore, but boom has been in very short supply since the April 20th Deepwater Horizon oil spill. "Our contractors found a way to immediately manufacture 3 to 5 miles a...

NEW ORLEANS, May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The chemical dispersants being used to break up the oil leaking into the gulf following the explosion of British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig have the potential to cause just as much, if not more, harm to the environment and the humans coming into contact with it than the oil possibly would if left untreated. That is the warning of toxicology experts, led by Dr. William Sawyer, addressing the Gulf Oil Disaster Recovery Group, a group of...

STAMFORD, Conn., May 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Corent Company, in cooperation with Evergreen Flying, Inc., both Louisiana based companies, propose using the 1295 hp Turbine Air Tractor aircraft to apply Green Earth Technologies' (Pink Sheets: GETG) G-MARINE Fuel Spill Clean-UP! (NANO Emulsion Technology) Oil Dispersant over the affected areas of the BP/Trans Ocean Rig Collapse in the Gulf of Mexico. Utilizing 7 air tractor 802 aircraft, 14 square miles of oil spill could be treated...

MELBOURNE, Australia, May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- A revolutionary new product, which could play a big role in cleaning up the Gulf oil spill, has just been launched. The Australian developed product, called Gladiator, is a silicone-based liquid which spreads across the surface of the water. It pushes the oil away as it spreads, concentrating it for easy collection. It is a brilliant concept which would be particularly useful as a last line of defence where the oil is approaching the...