Kevin Costner Hopes To Fight Spill With Oil-Separating Technology (VIDEO)

Actor/environmental activist Kevin Costner has been waiting since Exxon Valdez to put his oil-separating technology to use. 15 years ago, Costner funded a science group, Ocean Therapy Solutions, headed by his brother, to develop a technology that can separate oil from water, WDSU in New Orleans reported.

"I'm just very happy that the light of day has come to this, and I'm very sad about why it is, but this is why it was developed, and like anything that we all face as a group, we face it together," Costner told the local news media.

Costner and his partners demonstrated how their technology works: Diesel fuel and water enter the machine together and are then jettisoned separately, with water and diesel each on one side. The machine cleans the water up to 97 percent.

There are five machines with different separating abilities, from five gallons a minute to 200 gallons a minute, WDSU reported.

According to the New York Times, BP officials and Ocean Therapy Solutions are working out where in the Gulf of Mexico is best to test the machines and hope to have them deployed within the week.

WATCH the machine in action: