Putting why the spill happened and who is responsible aside, one may ask how effective are the measures being used.

The first line of defense was to contain it and keep it from the coastlines. Ourtside of false reports, and to the surprise of many perdictions, the massive amount of oil did not reach the coast and cause damage....at least not yet.

Secondly, a goal it to keep as much from the surface as possible, because of the above and because this is an area which is important for seabirds primary production and larval stages ofmarine life. (since booms, burning and surface dispersants only seemed so effective. Skimming is too complex considering the volume). I also suspect if the oil is too thick on the surface, it becomes a safety hazard to those dealing with it. The oil weathered on its way up, so this likely gave reason to use different dispersants to see what worked.

I doubt much was known about the effectiveness of applying dispersants at deep depths...whether it could be done, and how the temperatures and pressure would impact the effectiveness. It seems they worked to some degree. Some refer to a plume, but it is not clear if it is just dispersed oil, staying together because there umay be little wave (current) energies to break it up. But, it is not on the surface nor on the coast.

There are few reports of dead birds or marine life.....as seen in other major spills. One would expect some long term impacts, but little now is a good sign. Maybe some animals avoided the area? The impact on microscopic species and eggs and larvae could be the longer term ones.

I expect they will soon just cover the thing over with drilling muds and other things soon, until the other drilling cuts that pipe off. They used odd stuff (big steel balls) to do that in another incident I seem to recall....and it worked.

I expect there will be plenty of well financed study (I suspect more was needed), and preparation for another future major spill...which will happen some day (as long as we use oil). More caution will also be a good thing when it comes to future development.

All in all, it could have been much worse...(recognizing it is not over yet). Lessons learned will define just how serious we took this disaster and early warning.