Actually, I can't see what BRITISH Petroleum has to do with the USA anyway other than having the platform near the USA.
Anyway, judging by BP's past performance and attitude of its directors, the chance the company is culpable is pretty high.
Does that mean they have to take responsibility for a cement plug that did not hold? Doesn't the cementing company have a 'guarantee' that the cement will hold or does somebody beyond their control give then the formula and locations for the plugs before the last cap is put in place?
You don't even have to guess who is going to make the money out of this accident if two of the three being asked for opinions are Lawyers and the insurance companies will need bigger bailouts than the Banks and they are even more intertwined on an International level.
Since the fishing is going to be slow why not hire those boats (@ a premium price) to troll into the slick with some fine mesh filter cloth that could wick up some of the heavier particles. Those rolls could be loaded onto barges for further processing (recovery of the oil and reuse of the mesh). Once the discharge is stopped the shoreline could then be addressed.
Be a good time for Syncrude to donate a few 'duck deterrents' in the areas where they are in danger. Marshes should recover by themselves ..... eventually .... reeds (like cat-tails in Alberta) can be used as a sponge in an oil spill. They are then harvested, dried and burned until the contamination is down to the desired level. For an Exxon type of spill the crude would have only saturated the gravel beaches to a certain depth and a barge could have been used to scour the top few feet at recover that oil if complete restoration was the desired goal, which it wasn't in Alaska but the Carribbian might be a different case. As always the cost gets passed onto the American taxpayer, of the minimal amount is done. Out of site out of mind.
For all the cost they should flood the whole coastline it huge gates to keep the rivers backed up some and turn the whole place into a floating salt water city. The newer landbased industries would be moved to higher ground, and really that stuff was rather old anyway. The new 'lakes' could be a combination farm / city.
There was lots of 'enthusiasm' for Haiti and their 'long term' recovery in the early days of the quake. Hardly any follow-ups at all that points to their lives being made much better. America should be able to solve this entirely on her own, after all the Military was (again) the first ones sent in. (Commandos looking for planted explosives)
