"NEW ORLEANS — Environmental groups and women from Alaska and Louisiana say the Environmental Protection Agency has dragged its heels on issuing rules for oil spill dispersants, and they’re ready to sue to demand them.
They say dispersants such as Corexit, used during the Exxon Valdez and BP oil spills, were more toxic to people and the environment than oil alone but, nearly four years after taking public comments about such rules, the agency hasn’t acted.
“We depend on feeding our families from the ocean. We need the ocean to be a clean environment for our animals,” Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, a plaintiff from Alaska, said in a telephone interview. With the Trump administration considering an oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, she said, people fear both spills and dispersants."
Janet McConnaughey reports for the Associated Press with Dan Joling March 25, 2019.
