answer:I’m not a scientist, but the site you linked does say “The microbes are simply mixed with water and sprayed on the oil as it reaches the calmer waters near shore or on shore itself.” That could be the reason right there. A lot of the oil is beneath the surface and ideally, they want to take care of without letting all of it get to the calmer waters near the shore. Not to mention that no matter what we do to clean up what is already there, it’s just going to be replaced with more oil until we stop the leak. Right now, I believe the focus is on stopping the leak. They are trying something new now, but that will take a few days before we will know if it is successful. I will give BP some credit. Each time something fails, they are right there trying something new without wasting a lot of time in between attempts. It sucks that they haven’t stopped the leak yet, but I honestly think they are trying. On another site, I saw that these microbes use oxygen to “eat” the oil, there by depleting the oxygen available for the fish there in the water. So it’s not exactly 100% without it’s own cost either. It does sound like a great idea for clean up, as long as it can be used before all the oil gets to the shore and it can get to the water that’s under the surface.