End in sight for BP’s calamitous spill

What happened

With BP’s new cap putting an apparent end to the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the oil giant and the White House this week debated how best to shut down the damaged Macondo well permanently. BP said the well was sufficiently stable to warrant a “static kill,” in which drilling mud, followed by cement, is pumped into the top of the well to seal it for good. But U.S. officials expressed caution about subjecting the well to additional pressure, citing the potential for a rupture in the well’s metal casing and surrounding rock, a disastrous scenario that could allow oil to seep up uncontrollably through cracks in the sea floor. The White House appeared to prefer to wait a week or two for the completion of a relief well, which would seal the original well deep under the ocean floor. “It would be very premature to say the well is shut in,” said Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s crisis manager.

At a federal hearing in Louisiana, BP’s well manager said he’d reported a leak on the blowout preventer, but was ignored by company officials, who also failed to perform normal safety tests before the April 20 explosion. In Washington, Rep. Ed Markey accused BP of low-balling estimates of the spill’s volume in an effort to minimize legal liability. “It’s obvious in retrospect that they were either lying or grossly incompetent,” Markey said. With more than 40,000 workers and 6,000 vessels engaged, BP is spending roughly $100 million a day to clean up the spill.

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What the editorials said

Finally, “the well is capped,’’ said The Dallas Morning News. But this disaster has provided the nation with a “sobering reality check.” We’ve learned that cleanup technology “has evolved little since the 1950s, and we’ve seen reports of massive regulatory failures, callous and sloppy safety practices, and unfettered corporate hubris that unwisely tempted fate.”

It’s obvious why this happened, said the St. Petersburg, Fla., Times. Blame the lack of government oversight and BP’s arrogant refusal to plan for failure at its deep-water drilling sites. We need “better defenses” against catastrophe, beginning with a regulatory overhaul “to better regulate drilling and respond to future spills.”

What the columnists said

In its final stages, the effort to end the spill has become a power struggle between BP and the Obama administration, said Bryan Walsh in Time.com. Adm. Allen is working for the public at large, and although he has the final say, he’s dependent for information on BP engineers, “who are running the show minute by minute.” BP is a private company, so it’s primary agenda is to protect shareholders—not the citizens of the Gulf. That divergence of responsibilities helped produce the “dysfunctional” effort we’ve seen.

It’s been three months of incredible ineptitude, said William Saletan in Slate.com. Way back in April, BP considered installing a massive capping stack like the one now in place. But the feds vetoed that idea, fearing the well “would spring more leaks if capped.” As a result, tens of millions of additional gallons of oil flowed out, ultimately reducing the pressure inside the well, which subsequently allowed it to be capped without incident. “Success is finally within our reach, thanks to three months of catastrophic failure. Congratulations.”

Obama may feel like celebrating now, said Jim Geraghty in National Review Online. “But I think the damage has been done.” The public concluded that he lacked urgency and competence in attacking the disaster, and “the issue of the spill is now baked in the cake.” The biggest casualty, though, may be public confidence in institutions, said Peter S. Goodman in The New York Times. For three months, oil spurted into the Gulf in defiance of the White House, scientists and engineers, and “a multinational oil company that held itself up as a beacon of environmental sensitivity.” After the Wall Street collapse, the intractable war in Afghanistan, and the bitter political warfare in Washington, Americans are rightly asking: Is there anyone we can trust?