Laila Morcos - laila@abc26.com ABC26 News

10:59 a.m. CDT, May 20, 2010
NEW ORLEANS—
Actor Kevin Costner is hoping star power and his oil spill clean-up machine will help in the gulf.

"Years before I got involved oil spills would come and, I would wonder why we couldn't clean this up," says Costner. He's invested in a company that invented a processing machine that separates oil from water. "It's robust. Works at the speed that someone talked about, 200,000 gallons a minute. But it takes 99% of the oil."

News & weather text alerts -- free on your cell phone from WGNO!

Using a small prototype of the machine, Costner demonstrated how it works for a group of stressed parish officials today. "We'll take this any day over the black oil that's covering south Plaquemines right now," says Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

The larger centrifuge model can collect up to 3,000 gallons of oil per day, and right now 31 of them are available. The response: There are no better options.

"I think it's a no-brainer to try it," says Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young. Nungesser says, "I think we need to put it to work." And St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro says, "Let's get this out there. See what it can do."

At this point, Costner and a group of local investors are hoping BP is listening. "We need the government to say, 'let's go.' we need BP to say, 'let's go.' we are ready. We have the technology," says Attorney John Houghtaling. "I believe they'll want to do the right thing," Costner says.

While an exact price for the machine wasn't available, the company did say using it would save BP a significant amount of money in the clean up process.

The liquid-liquid centrifuges are already used in other parts of the world in industries like petroleum, chemical, mining, and environmental.