Today is the 35th day of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. You would think, on day one, the first move oil company BP would make would be to plug the spill. That move came on the 34th day.

On May 25, the “top kill” process began. Large amounts of thick mud are pumped into the hole in hopes of overflowing the oil and stopping the leak. BP officials said it would be a couple of days before they knew it would work.

What’s disturbing is that this was not the first maneuver. Instead, the company tried everything they could to save the oil. The first idea was to place a 125-ton containment dome over the leaks so the oil could be sucked out. That didn’t work. The next idea was to dig another hole, suck the oil out from there and relieve the leak. That didn’t work. The next idea was to put a tube in the leak and siphon off the oil to a tanker. This is saving 2,000 barrels of oil from the Gulf of Mexico each day, but thousands more continue to pollute the water.

When all is said and done, BP should not only have to answer for what happened to the oil rig but also for their delay in stopping the leak. If they truly wanted to stop polution, they should have stopped the leak first, not try to contain it in order to save oil.

Photo provided by NASA