Scandal

Along with many others, I've had it with the response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf. I'll second tree hugging sister here:

The problem is that the saying “shit happens” didn’t come into being because shit doesn’t happen, but because it ALWAYS happens. ALWAYS. And we’ve all been there and all said it and all cleaned shit up. Which is why you plan for it, why you have seven different ways to fix the twelve different things that might go to shit and know at least eighteen different people who have an idea what to do if you do. Why you use an exponent for expertise depending on the difficulty/level of possible public embarrassment/natural disaster involved in the project at hand.

Aside from what may be some minor disagreement about the phrase "shit happens", she's right. Pushing the envelop in deep sea oil drilling demanded more rigorous procedures and more rigorous oversight than ever.

I think scandal one here is the shortcuts taken just before the accident occurred, if last week's 60 Minutes report is accurate. Scandal two is the failure to prepare for all contingencies and have a response ready to be implemented very quickly. At this stage, five weeks into this mounting disaster, the response is a failure no matter what happens now.

And scandal three, potentially, popped into my mind as the talk last week turned to the top kill attempt to seal off the well completely. Why wasn't that done earlier?

I have the sinking feeling that this whole damage control effort has been heavily skewed into finding a way to save BP's investment in that well and not toward limiting the environmental damage. I don't know that to be the case, but I think it deserves to be investigated and whether federal officials have been too deferential up to this point in seeing BP salvage what it can of that wellhead. There may be solid technical reasons for taking the steps they have so far in the order they have taken them, but I would also like to know if there were other options available that would have shut this leak down earlier, and if so, why were they not taken?