by Shannon Boone

Created on: July 21, 2010

When you hear Kevin Costner’s name, it is usually associated in conjunction with one of his many Hollywood Blockbuster films, such as “Dances with Wolves” or “Waterworld”.  Lately however, his name has been associated with something more significant because its impact is still unknown, the BP oil spill.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that on April 20, a natural gas explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, killed 11 crew members and injured another 17, eventually sinking the rig.  This chain of events led to what is now one of the biggest oil spills in history.  It is estimated that over 120 million gallons of crude oil have spewed into the Gulf so far, but because it is just an estimate, the total amount of oil that has spread in the Gulf is ultimately unknown.

Since the April 20th incident, there have been many challenges that have arisen while BP, and essentially the rest of the world figures out how to cap the oil well to stop the oil flow, and how to clean up the existing oil in the water as well as the oil that has washed ashore.

For the task of oil cleanup, is where actor Kevin Costner comes in.  Apparently, Kevin Costner had been working on a project dealing with oil clean up for the past 15 years, costing about $20 million dollars of his own money.  The premise of the device is that it is able to clean up the oil in the water without any dispersants or chemicals, which are methods currently being used.  The major issue with these methods mainly revolves around the fact that it is still uncertain how these chemicals will take their toll on the already devastated marine and wildlife in the Gulf area.  Kevin Costner’s device however, which was actually designed by his brother’s technology, “spins oil-contaminated water at a rapid speed, so as to separate out the oil and capture it in a containment tank”.

Recently, Kevin Costner went before Congress to pitch his idea for his device to put it to work for use in combating this devastating disaster in the Gulf.  Being called a “major breakthrough in spill cleanup technology”, BP then contracted to order 32 of the devices from Kevin Costner’s Ocean Therapy Solutions business.

Although there is no word yet on when BP will begin using the devices, every little bit counts when if comes to tackling this oil spill, so the sooner the better.

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