While the Gulf oil spill, which began with a drilling rig explosion on April 20, was still raging in its fourth week with no end in sight, BP Chairman Tony Hayward said that the environmental impact would be "very, very modest" because the gulf was a “big ocean”. No one ever spoke out and supported his declaration then. After all, no one could have predicted that the oil leakage estimated to be almost five million barrels before the well was capped in mid- July, would disappear, evaporate or dissolve as nature pleased.
