We cannot take a collective sigh of relief yet.
The containment cap that was put on the ruptured well leaking for months now, seems to have worked as of this morning. Although no oil has leaked out through the night into this morning, BP still plans on reviewing the well every six hours. BP officials said that the cap isn’t a permanent solution– it’s just the first step in taking care of the destruction that has ruined the Gulf coast line for nearly three months.
According to The New York Times:
Kent Wells, a senior vice president at BP, told reporters on a conference call that the pressure inside the well had built up steadily, as engineers had hoped it would, and that engineers would continue to perform different analyses and scour video feeds from cameras to look for any underground leaks.
In Washington, President Obama hailed the development but cautioned against concluding that the corner had been turned, noting that it was still possible for there to be complications that “could be even more catastrophic” than the original leak.
Appearing in the Rose Garden before taking off for a long weekend in Maine, Mr. Obama said he and the government were staying on top of the problem and that all decisions would be based on science, “not based on PR, not based on politics.” The final solution, he noted, will be the relief wells expected to be complete next month, and then after that attention still needs to be paid to the cleanup and compensation.
“The new cap is good news,” he said. “Either we will be able to use it to stop the flow or we will be able to use it to capture almost all the oil until the relief well is done.” But he added: “It’s important that we don’t get ahead of ourselves here. One of the problems with having the camera down there is that when the oil stops gushing, everybody feels like we’re done, and we’re not.”
