Your argument totally neglects the fact that "liability," as a legal concept, means it is not necessarily the case that all parties share equal blame. Had the

Your argument totally neglects the fact that "liability," as a legal concept, means it is not necessarily the case that all parties share equal blame. Had the operator not filed for bankruptcy, it would likely have been responsible for its own failure to appropriately manage the wells. Had the state or federal government established adequate bonding practices to pay for the plugging of old and unproductive wells such as these, the burden of plugging these particular wells would have been lessened.