"Field of Dreams" star Kevin Costner has another dream -- helping to clean up the massive oil spill that has contaminated the Gulf of Mexico over the past few weeks.
BP has approved a test of Costner’s Ocean Therapy device to help the company clean up the Gulf after its Deepwater Horizon drill rig exploded and began spewing oil into the water, officials said today.
The machine -- described as a processing device that separates oil from water -- was first developed by scientists hired by Costner following the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska.
“The machines are basically sophisticated centrifuge devices that can handle a huge volume of water and separate at unprecedented rates,” Ocean Therapy Solutions CEO John Houghtaling told CBS's New Orleans affiliate WWL-TV.
“They were developed from older centrifuge technology. Normal centrifuge machines are very slow and sensitive to different ratios of oil to water mixtures at intake. Costner has been funding a team of scientists for the last 15 years to develop a technology which could be used for massive oil spills.”
The former "Waterworld" actor could not be reached for comment today, but told reporters last week that he wanted to help.
"Years before I got involved, oil spills came and I would wonder why we couldn't clean this up," he said.
