There's obviously a lot of work left to clean up the leaked oil but at least the well is finally shut down.
Engineers were conducting tests Saturday on the cement injected into the bottom of BP's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, and an official declaration that the well has been permanently plugged was expected sometime Sunday, officials said.
The pronouncement will be an anticlimactic end to a catastophe that began five months ago - after all, the gusher was capped in July.
This, though, is an important milestone for the still-weary residents of the Gulf Coast: an assurance that not so much as a trickle of oil will ever again seep from the well. The disaster began April 20, when an explosion killed 11 workers, sank a drilling rig and led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
