The oil giant that can not stop its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico asked anyone with a solution to come forward. Hollywood answered the call.
Kevin Costner, the star of "Bull Durham" and "Waterworld" stood together with this BP chief Doug Suttles this weekend and watched three water-cleaning machines developed by his company, Ocean Therapy Solutions, sail out to sea aboard an oil-skimming barge.
"At its core, my dream, this machine, was designed to give us a fighting chance to figh back the oil thats got us by the throat," Costner told reporters in the Gulf, Reuters reported.
The device, called a V20, separates oil from water using a centrifuge. Costner said one centrifuge could clean 600,000 gallons of water a day. BP has ordered 32 of the machines.
BP created a hot line for the public to suggest solutions to the leak, which latest studies estimate is spewing 35,000 barrels of oil into open water south of Louisiana. BP complained that the phone line and a web application form were deluged with tens of thousands of suggestions world wide, the Times-Picayune reported.
The "Dances With Wolves" star managed to skip the line by taking his idea straight to Congress earlier this month. Appearing before the House Energy and Environment Subcomittee, he explained the science of his machines. "I'm not here because I heard a voice in the cornfield," he told legislators.
