They aren't the only ones studying this; are you aware of anything that contradicts their results? From studies to simple observations that things stopped getting worse when the well was capped?
(I for one an extremely tired of this sort of attack, which among other things implies that government funded researchers are a pure as the driven snow. OK, I exaggerate, but it's been well demonstrated in many fields that deviating from the scientific establishment's orthodoxy results in your no longer being able to get government funding for your research.)
I suppose I should have been less sarcastic -- it's entirely possible that the study is correct, and that would be great news.
Science, like any other pursuit, is influenced by money and politics (see EPA under Bush). I don't think I'll ever believe anything BP says ever again, and I'm immediately skeptical of any organization who has a business or funding relationship with them.
I believe the article you linked to discusses the same study the OP acknowledges.
"These latest findings may initially seem to be at odds with a study published last Thursday in Science by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution..."
"The Woods Hole team used an autonomous robot submarine and a mass spectrometer to detect the plume, but were forced to leave the area in late June...But that was before the well was capped in mid-July. Hazen said that within two weeks of the capping, the plume could not be detected"
(I for one an extremely tired of this sort of attack, which among other things implies that government funded researchers are a pure as the driven snow. OK, I exaggerate, but it's been well demonstrated in many fields that deviating from the scientific establishment's orthodoxy results in your no longer being able to get government funding for your research.)