A team from Penn State University returned with shocking footage that showed the seafloor looking more like an asphalt parking lot than the colorful kaleidoscope it had been just months earlier. Rather than dissipating the oil, the dispersant had in fact been sinking it to the ocean’s bottom, coating virtually everything on its way down. I covered the BP spill for the Times, and I remember reading the internal documents and court records where BP scientists discussed this problem. The concerns about the dispersant seemed so academic and inconsequential until I watched the before-and-after
...more
