Kevin Costner’s Other Waterworld - Cleaning up the BP oil spill

Jun 1, 2010 | Stacy Matson | Celebrity Health
Kevin Costner’s Other Waterworld - Cleaning up the BP oil spill

image by: Georges Biard

If they spill it I will come - Kevin Costner

Yep! Kevin Costner. We now know what he’s been up to for the past 10 years while not making movies. Costner is probably best known for his acting roles in Waterworld, The Bodyguard (ugh!), A Perfect World, Dances with Wolves, Field of Dreams, plus a few other stinkers. But he’s also an environmentalist, an avid outdoorsman, and an amateur scientist/inventor. So it makes sense that his latest project is not a movie but a business called Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS).

Fueled by his anger at the government’s lack of preparedness during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, Costner has spent the past 15 years developing OTS and clean water technologies. Costner's OTS business partners are his brother Dan, a scientist, and John Houghtaling, an attorney. Together, they purchased oil separating equipment from the government and invested $24 million to develop vacuum-like machines for private sector use in the event of another catastrophic spill.

For the past 15 years OTS worked with a small group of scientists to develop technologies that clean and remove oil from water before it can reach the coast and endanger delicate ecosystems and wildlife. Costner says their technology not only cleans the polluted water but can salvage pure, reusable oil at a rate of 97% while pumping 99% purified water back into the ocean. They’re fast as well; OTS’s machines can clean oil spills at a rate of 200 gallons per minute. Costner said his company has more than 20 machines ready for use.

I thought oil separating technology was a relatively new thing. Come to find out our government has been using oil-extracting machines for decades but they are slower and less efficient (weird) than those developed by Ocean Therapy Solutions. Costner said last week, "What struck [me] was that we had this same separation technology for years -- how is it that we can go to the moon in the '60’s but we can't advance our oil separation technology? Our technology is ready to combat the BP spill.” (BP? Are you listening???)

Costner and Houghtaling demonstrated their machines for local business leaders and reporters at a New Orleans press conference last week and said the machines could be in the water as early as Friday. "The technology works," Houghtaling said. "We know the technology works and we know it's really the only solution. Our machines can handle a huge volume of water and separate [the oil] at unprecedented rates.” Costner concluded, “Oil companies have not been fully prepared for such ecological disasters. Oil-separating machines, which do not use harmful chemicals to break up the oil, should be mandatory on all rigs.” Maybe BP is finally ready to admit defeat as they are yielding to the community’s demands and will test Costner’s device next week.

It may be too little too late though. When the spill first occurred (40 days ago) BP officials said only 1,000 barrels of oil were leaking into the Gulf per day. They later revised that figure to 5,000 barrels. However, many scientists believe that a more accurate amount is closer to 210,000 barrels a day. And, as of May 23, there are 56,000,000 barrels of spilled oil heading towards the coastline and into the ocean’s major currents. Oil has already landed on more than 65 miles of shoreline, and the slick is now as big as the states of Maryland and Delaware combined. To date, the cost of the (failed) clean-up is more than $900 million.

I’m not sure if I’m angrier about the spill itself or the lingering consequences. Or maybe it’s the 715,000 gallons of highly toxic chemical dispersants being pumped into the already fragile Gulf of Mexico. Or maybe it’s the lax regulations and safety violations that got us into this situation in the first place. Maybe it’s the sadness I feel for the families of the 11 men who died out there just doing their job. Maybe it’s the thousands of crabbers, shrimpers, and fishermen who can no longer support their families. Maybe it’s all of those reasons.

The BP oil spill is the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history and every attempt BP has made at containment has failed miserably and it’s still a long way from over. Let’s hope Costner has the solution. Remember what he said? “If they spill it I will come."


Stacy Matson is a health enthusiast from Southern California and regularly blogs on Celebrity Health for A Healthier World, as well as contributing to the Best of the Best.

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