Lessons Learned from BP Oil Disaster

If it happened again tomorrow, would we be better equipped to handle it?

Remnants of the bath of oil the gulf coast took a year and a half ago can still be found on area beaches. While the economic and environmental impacts may still be unknown, the lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon disaster may be even harder to define according to Florida State University Oceanographer Ian Macdonald. "What has changed? What are we doing now as a nation in terms of inspection and regulatory capacity that we were not doing before April of 2010. We don't really have an answer."

For local governments the recovery continues. "We still fight with BP almost every single day about most anything and everything. I see no effort to make it more of a local response. I don't know that we've learned anything other than BP is going to be drilling in the gulf and making billions of dollars in the future," says Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon.

From a regulatory aspect it seems little has changed. "My thing is we're now letting Shell now drill. What have they done to prove if something happens they can cap the well? I mean who is being held accountable," asks Jamie Rodgers with Emerald Coastkeeper.

18 months after the BP oil disaster and there are still questions, concerns and fear it could happen again she says. "They are pushing the technology to get into deeper and deeper waters but they are not keeping up allowing the technology to keep up with them as far as preventative measures or protective measures if something does happen."

For many, it's not a question of if, but when it will happen again. The final federal report released last month on the BP disaster showed a drilling project riddled with problems including, a faulty cement job, misreading key information and the failure of the blow out preventer.