other unanswered questions, three years down the road, maybe we are knew it all along or if they were in the dark until now d st like we were. remarkable new reporting on the question that i frankly was asked the most when i was down at the gulf covering this story. the worry that was expressed to me the most by people who live on the gulf coast and make their living on the water there, three years ago in the middle of the spill, this is what folks worry about more than anything. we are getting answered about it now three years later. for now crews are lying on the tried and true method of kpem cal dispushants. these are chemicals you have seen dusted offer the oil slick. bp dispursed thousands of gallons on the oil slick, not to mention that pumped to the leak. that is more used on any oil spell ever. the chemicals are toxic.
and one of the complications around dispersants is the fact that dispersants are seen as proprietary technology, that the companies who make them don t disclose what s in them. we cannot allow for these companies to be using dispersants, chemicals in ways that could ultimately have profound impacts on not only the food that is provided from that region, from the fishing, but also the impact that it could ultimately have upon human beings. are you also hearing concerns voiced about the long-term impacts of dispersants? that s one thing that i know a lot of fishermen when i was down there were talking to me about and the government saying yeah, they re doing long-term studies but they don t know. right. very much so. they don t know the long-term impacts and that s what is what really scares people here. that is what really scares people. now, three years down the road, some of the very ominous unanswered questions asked on the gulf coast when that spill was happening and dumping
bp was having all sort of discussions about how it wasn t 5,000 barrels a day. it was more like 60,000 or maybe 140,000 barrels a day. but publicly, they kept assuring everybody that it was no big deal, only 5. the important part was not just that bp was wrong or that they didn t know the answer and they were getting. the important part in their culpability, the reason they paid the largest corporate fine in history of corporate fines was not because they got it wrong, it is because they did know the truth and they lied about it. they lied about it publicly and lied about it to congress. in the three years since the worst oil spill ever, there is a slow unfolding in the courts and the gulf of things that we, the public, did not know at the time of the spill. some of them, it turns out, the oil companies knew what the truth was and kept it from us.
4.5 billion to be paid by the company that does not want you to pronounce the petroleum in their name. they just want you to call them by their initiales. bp. think of this green, green sun flower when you think of them and not say british petroleum. bp earned bragging rights for being charged the largest fine ever in american history. they earned it in part for lying. bp caused the largest accidental oil spill in world history three years ago this week. and their full culpability for that spill is still being worked out along with the other companies that are responsible. they are currently on trial in new or lean. but the bp lying part of it, that part has been adjudicated. bp admitted in court that while they said publicly and to congress even, that their gushing well only leaking 5,000 barreles a day, merely a flesh wound. while they said that publicly, not only was that wrong, but they knew it was wrong.
years ago in the middle of the spill, this is what folks worry about more than anything. now three years later we are starting to get some answers about it. for now crews are relying on the tried and true method of chemical dispersants. these are chemicals you have seen dusted offer the oil slick. bp has already sprayed 160,000 gallons of dispersant on the oil slick not to mention the 6,000 gallons pumped down to the leak well beneath the surface of the ocean. that s more dispersant than has ever been used on any oil spill ever. the chemicals in the dispersants are themselves toxic. probably. we don t really know what s in them. what are the long-term impacts of breathing this? of touching the oil? of touching the dispersant. these are all questions that nobody really knows the answer to. so we need scientific data. we need doctors to help people when they do come in contact with this. one of the response technologies so controversial for this disaster, congressman, is the issue of