Tim's already posted on this but I can't resist the numbers:
By October, about 10 miles of berms had been built several miles from the gulf coastline at a cost of $220 million, with construction paid for entirely by BP. Louisiana officials estimate that the berms stopped 1,000 barrels of oil from the spill.
By contrast, more than 800,000 barrels were captured at the wellhead, and roughly 270,000 barrels were burned off by Coast Guard vessels. Skimming operations recovered at least 34 million gallons of oil-water mixture.
“$220 million for a spill response measure that trapped not much more than 1,000 barrels of oil is not a compelling cost-benefit tradeoff,” the commission staff wrote.
via www.nytimes.com
The cost per oil stopped by berms is $220,000 per barrel.
