The companies have four billion bucks or more in a fund to do just what you said, if it goes to heck or TAPS shuts down they are obligated to restore the land and remove the pipe.  And the mud blob?..  lots of mud hauling trucks and drivers and equipment operators eager to work to throw that mud over the other side for good.  The sky isn`t falling and we have a very conservative investment portfolio from what I have heard.  Oil producers are making a nice profit in Alaska at 47 bucks a barrel thank you thanks to BS21,.. unlike many of their outside and foreign projects.  The oil producers, like Alaskans, can afford to pitch in, receiving no more subsidies and paying a fair severence tax to help keep the state in a healthy and vibrant balanced-budget place. It`s also a constitutional imperative to tax them to the hilt.