BP and shutting down an oil pipeline

I saw the initial reports that due to corrosion British Petroleum was shutting down their 22-mile oil pipeline that feeds from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez in Alaska. So, I googled up some research on the pipeline, wondering how old it was and how it was made, etc. I discovered that this is not recent news.

Apparently, these pipelines and their feeder lines have been experiencing a series of cascading failures for quite a while. There was a spill that went largely unnoticed or unreported in March with over 250,000 barrels of oil released. There have been reports of faulty valves, as well as many reports of corroded lines. BP was actually permitted to continue to use the lines even though mandated corrosion tests could not be completed.

I guess I just wonder why things are allowed to get so out of hand. Haven't these people heard of preventative maintenance? Now we are faced with what appears to be an eight percent reduction in our oil supply due to this problem. Of course, never missing an opportunity to make money, the oil companies will welcome the additional money that they make due to decreased supply and an increasing demand.

Perhaps we should make the oil companies pay for the reparations and absorb the additional costs. They have certainly made enough money in the past several years to pay for it.