WASHINGTON — “Waterworld” star Kevin Costner testified before Congress yesterday that for years the feds had no interest in his oil-spill cleanup machine.
Costner told a House panel that for more than a decade, federal officials have ignored pleas to use his high-tech centrifuges that separate oil from water and are finally being deployed by BP to help clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Costner acknowledged that he appeared out of place on the panel of scientists.
“I’m the only one here who doesn’t have a ‘Dr.’ in front of his name,” he told the Science and Technology Committee.
“It may seem an unlikely scenario that I am the one delivering this technology at this moment in time. But from where I’m sitting, it is equally inconceivable that these machines are not already in place,” he said.
Costner, inspired by the calamity of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, bought the patent to the centrifuge technology from the Department of Energy in 1993 and funded the Louisiana-based Ocean Therapy Solutions to develop the machines.