Is the Gulf Oil Spill Story Over? Not Really

  • Share
  • Read Later

Maybe the biggest lesson to be learned from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is that things like these almost always have an anti-climactic ending.

In this case, rather than going out with a musclebound corporate exec wielding a huge wrench choking the underwater geyser to a dramatic stop, BP is simply going to plug the hole up with cement, just days after pumping mud into it, effectively ending the nearly four-month environmental conundrum.

Now that the “static kill” is more or less working, the federal government is now saying that most of the oil spilled since the initial Deepwater Horizon accident is gone either through cleanup, dissolving or being eaten by existing microbes in the water. But that doesn’t mean the Gulf is out of the woods yet.

“We know the static kill worked, and we know we’re not going to have more oil leaking into the Gulf,” Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, told CNN. “We also have the long-term restoration,” she said. “So we’re just beginning one phase as we end one phase.”

Meanwhile, in Louisiana, it’s safe to go in the water again, officials say. Recreational fishing has reopened, and commercial fishing is set to open soon as well.

“I hope for this weekend to be able to take my sons back out to do some fishing that they’ve been begging to do all summer,” said Deano Bonano, the director of Homeland Security for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.