Finally! BP caps the Gulf gusher

(EPA)

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After 85 days, they finally plugged the damn hole!

BP said oil from its crippled Gulf of Mexico well stopped gushing yesterday afternoon after the energy giant shut all valves on a new 75-ton tight cap.

The announcement elated gunk-weary Gulf residents, sent BP stock soaring and cheered a beleaguered White House, which has struggled for three months with what’s been dubbed “Obama’s Katrina.”

VIDEO: OIL LEAK CAPPED

President Obama called the cap a “positive sign” but cautioned that it may take until tomorrow to know for certain if it’s holding.

“We’re still in a testing phase,” he told reporters in Washington.

BP and US officials also warned that the cap isn’t a permanent fix.

The leak won’t be sealed for good until BP finishes drilling two relief wells and can pump mud and cement into the main well. That isn’t expected to happen until next month.

Nevertheless, the apparent end of the nation’s worst environmental disaster was good news for Obama, who vented his frustration nearly eight weeks ago when he exclaimed to aides, “Just plug the damn hole!”

Several weeks ago, Obama recalled how, while he was shaving one morning, daughter Malia had asked him, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”

Since the crisis began on April 20, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the president has made four inspection trips to the region and said he was frustrated in trying to figure out “whose ass to kick.”

Over the three months, BP tried a variety of desperate containment steps, with names like “Top Kill,” “Cut and Cap” and “Junk Shot.”

Technicians also sent in deepwater robots and tried to install a four-story containment dome, and the desperate White House consulted with “Avatar” moviemaker and deep-water expert James Cameron, while “Waterworld” movie star Kevin Costner testified before Congress about his cleanup technology.

But the oil kept gushing — until yesterday, when BP vice president Kent Wells cautiously declared victory.

“I am very pleased that there’s no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, I’m really excited there’s no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico,” he told reporters.

As he spoke, the infamous undersea video — which had featured an ugly, billowing, real-time brown cloud erupting into the Gulf — showed a quiet, still well.

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley’s face lit up when he heard the flow had stopped. “I think a lot of prayers were answered today,” he said.

Wells said engineers gradually dialed down the amount of crude escaping through the last of three valves in the cap until it was closed at 3:25 p.m. New York time.

That means the oil gushed for 85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes since the first report of the rig explosion and leak.

Exactly how much damage was done is unclear and may take years to determine. But early estimates say at least 572 miles of coastal land were ruined by some 200 million gallons of oil.

The staggering scope of the disaster makes the 11-million-gallon Exxon Valdez leak in Alaska in 1989 look like a coffee spill.

The announcement of the cap triggered a Wall Street rally for BP, whose stock had lost more than half its value — sinking from more than $60 a share to $27.02 in the early weeks of the crisis.

In the final half-hour of trading yesterday, BP jumped nearly 10 percent, closing the session up nearly 8 percent at $38.92 a share.

Relieved US officials said they dodged another potential disaster — the possibility of a hurricane arriving before the leak was sealed.

Obama’s point man in the Gulf, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said “the best reason to be able to shut in the well right now . . . is it allows us to abandon the site if there’s a hurricane.”

Residents of coastal areas in four Gulf states could hardly believe their long regional nightmare was over.

“They’ve gotten our hopes up so many times before that in my mind, I don’t think it’s going to be over until Christmas,” said Steve Shepard, Gulf Coast chair of the Mississippi chapter of the Sierra Club.

Nine-year-old Lena Durden threw up her hands in jubilation when her mother told her the oil was stopped.

“God, that’s wonderful,” said mom Yvonne Durden, an Alabama native who now lives in Seattle and brought her daughter to the Gulf for a visit. “We came here so she could swim in the water and see it in case it’s not here next time.”

Chris Roberts, a councilman in coastal Jefferson Parish, La., said “everyone has waited on edge for this day to come.”

But Roberts, whose district includes the devastated tourist town of Grand Isle, added: “There’s a lot of oil remaining. Our focus will be to clean up the impacted areas and make the many impacted industries whole as quickly as possible.”

In other leak developments:

* The man in charge of the $20 billion fund set up by BP to pay individuals and business for their losses said it will start making payments early next month.

Ken Feinberg urged Gulf Coast residents harmed by the leak to promptly file claims rather than wait for the outcome of eventual lawsuits.

“My frustration is if people don’t file a claim,” he told a crowd of hundreds at a civic-center auditorium in Houma, La. “I’ve got this money to distribute, but I can only help if the claim is filed.”

By about Aug. 10, Feinberg will preside over the claims process, taking over the reins from BP, which has paid out about $191 million on 18,100 claims as of July 12, according to BP’s Web site.

* In Washington, the House Natural Resources Committee by a 27-21 vote approved legislation that would overhaul the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, the government agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling.

The bill would divide the agency into three parts: one for leasing and permitting; another for inspections and investigations; and a third to collect revenue.

It would also clamp down on the revolving door between government and industry by adding a two-year ban on offshore-drilling regulators taking industry jobs.

Committee chairman Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat, said the spill demonstrates that “there is very little room for error” when it comes to oil-rig safety.

Also yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation aimed at preventing another well blowout.

It requires an oil company’s CEO to attest that the company will have a working blowout preventer, an appropriate and effective spill-response plan, the capacity to promptly drill a relief well and will use a safe well design.

85 days of deepwater Turmoil

The catastrophic oil spill by the numbers:

• 85 days, 16 hours, 25 minutes

— length of time that oil leaked

• 200 million

— gallons spilled

• 4 million

— gallons of oil recovered to date

• $2 billion

— cost of cleanup so far

• 572 miles

— of Gulf shoreline ruined

• 80,000 square miles

— closed to fishing

• 3 million feet

— boom deployed to stop oil from reaching shores

• 5,000 suggestions

— for stopping spill received daily by BP

• 42,000

— response workers on the job

• 1,400

— boats responding to the crisis