A Zero Option for the Gulf?
Now that BP has successfully capped the well and new oil is no longer spilling out into the Gulf, we turn our attention to cleanup. I, like many of you, are disgusted that this accident ever occurred and want to see BP pay for the grievous mistakes that led to this unprecedented disaster. One way is make them go through extraordinary and prohibitively expensive clean-up measures to return the Gulf to its pristine state. But is that the right answer?
In engineering, we’ve been taught to always consider the “zero option” or the “do nothing” option in any alternatives analysis. This should also be applied to the cleanup in the Gulf. Similar to a doctor’s creed, the credo for the Gulf cleanup should be “first do no further harm.” Certainly BP will need to take extraordinary actions to clean up certain sectors of the environment impacted by the spill, but other sectors will be much better off if left alone to heal themselves. Let’s hope that in our cry for justice, we don’t lose sight of this and cause more damage than good by forcing BP to take actions that are counter to the best interests of the Gulf coast environment.