On it's own, oil is not magnetic, but MIT researchers say that when mixed with water-repellent nanoparticles that contain iron, the oil can be magnetically separatedfrom the water.
However, the shale rock containing natural gas is separatedfrom underground water aquifers by impermeable layers of rock that do not allow any hydraulic fracturing fluids to migrate into underground water aquifers.
By chance his brother, a teacher in Alaska, put him in touch with a small law firm that wanted help representing fishers in Cook Inlet, a body of water physically separatedfrom the spill by the Kenai Peninsula.