An alliance of environmental groups pushed U.S. EPA today to jump-start work on new rules for chemical dispersant use during oil spills, warning the agency that a lawsuit is in the offing if more specific limits and tests on the products don't move forward.

In a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Water Act, the seven green organizations charge EPA with avoiding a statutory burden to list the amount of dispersant that can be deployed safely, as well as the locations where dispersant can be used safely, as part of the National Contingency Plan (NCP) that governs oil disaster response.

A separate petition to EPA outlines the groups' proposals for the agency to address the lingering controversy over dispersants, more than 1.8 million gallons of which were sprayed during this summer's 87-day Gulf of Mexico gusher. The groups called for stronger toxicity testing standards for NCP-listed dispersants, the establishment of a toxicity ceiling for those products and the public release of dispersants' chemical ingredients.

"A regulatory system that permits the application of chemical products in the ocean before it is known how they will affect the ocean environment clearly needs to be addressed, and EPA has the authority to repair this dysfunction," wrote the petitioning groups, including the Sierra Club and Waterkeeper as well as three nonprofits from the Gulf Coast and two from Alaska.

EPA said in a statement that it would review the petition, reiterating that Administrator Lisa Jackson "has made clear that one of the lessons of this spill is that we need to learn more about the use and long-term impact of dispersant." Jackson most recently described herself as "committed to revisiting" the NCP listing process during testimony before the presidential commission investigating the Gulf spill (Greenwire, Sept. 28).

"To that end, EPA requested and received $2 million to conduct additional research into dispersants -- research that will supplement the independent testing EPA conducted specifically in response to this spill," the agency said.

Earthjustice attorney Marianne Engelman Lado, whose group acts as counsel for the seven organizations, recognized that eventual changes are in the offing. "Almost everybody acknowledges this needs to be done," she said. "The question is when, how quickly and what kind of change will we see?"

Current federal standards allow dispersant manufacturers to submit toxicity data to EPA in advance of their products' publication on the NCP. Still, that listing does not signify agency approval for use during oil spills and is intended to precede a preauthorization review by on-scene responders -- a goal that the environmental groups argue is rarely followed during the hectic first days of cleanup.

"[W]here preauthorization plans do not address a particular spill situation and on-scene coordinators must make quick decisions to authorize the use of dispersants, chemicals listed on the [NCP] are selected for use without further testing," the petitioners wrote.

"Given the limited testing required in the first place, EPA consequently fails to have safeguards in place to ensure that dispersants will not be authorized for use that are more toxic than oil alone or that are less effective and more toxic when used subsea."

Click here to read the notice.

Click here to read the petition.