Oil Dispersants Used During Gulf Spill Degrade Slowly In Cold Water

However, the density of oil makes it possible to collect it from the top of the ocean without extremely complicated measures.

Yes... but... see, you're making perfect sense here, so that's where you've gone awry.

There are ships that can suck in the oil slicks and ocean water, dump 97% of the oil into the hold and pump the mostly clean water back into the sea, repeating the process as necessary.

However, the EPA demanded that in the Macondo spill they not return that 3% water back to the ocean, but instead made them send out tankers to be filled up with the 3% water, which were then transported back to shore for decon.

The obvious problem there was that the rate of processing of the sea water was limited by how fast those tankers could get out and back and unload, and what the onshore capacity was and what the onshore processing rate was. Being all finite quantities the rate was lowered tremendously from its potential.

So, using dispersants was the next-least-bad. I used to know their names, but one of them was much less toxic than the other two. Still, the oil separating ships operating at full capacity would have been much better for the environment, but the government was here to help.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/VkzGT_juYzw/story01.htm

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