Oil Spill in the Gulf

Out of control oil wells used to be common. Now there is technology that, when it works, quickly brings a gusher under control. As a result, in the past forty years, there has not been a major oil spill in US waters.

Until now.

This time, the Blow Out Preventer, which is the device designed to shut down a runaway oil well, failed. The wonder is that anyone was surprised that such a thing could happen. All technology fails - for one reason or another - as this version of Murphy's Law states:

"If anything can go wrong, it will and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way."

The wonder is that BP seems not to have had a plan to manage a runaway well in the conditions in which it was operating and, more than a month since the blowout, is still making things up as it goes along. Worse, the Minerals Management Service, an Agency of the Department of the Interior, does not seem to have required that there be a plan. Worse yet, neither the Coast Guard nor the Environmental Protection Agency seem to have a plan, or access to sufficient resources, to respond effectively to what may become one of the worst environmental disasters ever in North America.

Those who undertake potentially risky and dangerous, albeit often very valuable, activities should make detailed plans to respond to things that, inevitably, will go wrong. When making these plans, they should also keep in mind another really important adage:

Murphy was an optimist.

Drilling for oil, in the deep waters of the Gulf, is important to our national and economic security. While the current situation shows that much more effective regulation is required, let us hope that the Congress can refrain from taking, or forcing, hasty and ill considered actions that serve no better purpose than to create sound bites and generate campaign contributions.

The first objective must be to maximize the chances that drilling can take place without a major spill occurring. The second objective is to ensure that there are plans in place, complete with the necessary resources, to minimize the damage that will occur when the inevitable technology failure occurs.