To help break up the thousands of gallons of oil in the gulf, BP has spent the past few months deploying chemical dispersants. The use of one particular dispersant, Corexit 9500, is the focus of a recent personal injury lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, claims that BP has discharged millions of gallons of toxic dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to harm both residents and wildlife, according to a recap on Law.com.

The plaintiffs are particularly concerned with BP’s alleged tactic of spraying Corexit 9500 into the air from airplanes in the middle of the night. The plaintiffs claim that this chemical caused residents of the Gulf Coast to experience severe breathing and gastrointestinal problems.

According to reports, the plaintiffs allege that use of Corexit 9500 has led to more than a hundred emergency room visits for symptoms including nausea, dizziness, shortness of breath and extreme headaches. In addition, hundreds more people have allegedly visited doctors because they have experienced similar symptoms.

Wright v. BP, further alleges that BP used the toxic chemicals in an attempt to reduce the visible presence of the spilled oil.

Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that BP sprayed Corexit 9500 in order “to lessen the public reaction to the oil spill by forcing the oil to the bottom of the Gulf … and to hide the massive amounts of oil at the bottom of the Gulf.”

Further, the plaintiffs’ attorneys believe that BP’s use of toxic chemical dispersants, a controversial practice among a wide range of environmental activists, will cause more damage to the health of Gulf Coast residents than the oil spill itself.

The lawsuit also names Nalco, the corporation that manufactures Corexit 9500, as a defendant. Both BP and Nalco have been sued before over the chemical dispersants. In fact, a group of Louisiana oystermen filed a suit against the two companies last month because they alleged that the use of the chemical dispersant was four times as toxic as the spilled oil.

Perhaps in response to local complaints, BP stopped using chemical dispersants on July 15 when it successfully placed a cap on the broken well.

With regard to the offending chemical, the plaintiffs cite British law, which outlawed the use of Corexit 9500 in 1998 due to the chemical’s unwanted presence in the food chain.

In addition, the EPA suggested this spring that BP cease use of the chemical, but the EPA lacked authority to take concrete actions to prevent the chemical’s use. Of course, Nalco and the EPA may have failed to communicate, as Nalco’s website claims that all the ingredients of Corexit 9500 “have been extensively studied for many years and have been determined safe and effective by the EPA.”