FAIRHOPE, Ala. — This could be the day British Petroleum (BP) stops the flow of crude oil that has been damaging fragile Gulf of Mexico ecosystems since April 22, or the company could simply be opening another can of worms.

There is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the “top kill” method of stopping the flow of oil that is planned for implementation today — nearly a mile below the water’s surface. No one can say with confidence whether the procedure will work at that depth, or just make the problem worse.

The plan involves pumping heavy drilling mud through the failed blowout preventer (BOP) that is at the center of the investigation into what went wrong after an explosion and fire destroyed the Deepwater Horizon platform above MC 252, the well site.

Two lines will enter the BOP (likely one at the choke valve and one at the kill valve), and the substance will be pumped through the valve and into the well head. It is hoped the weight and density of the mud, combined with the pressure applied (around 60 barrels per minute), will temporarily overcome the crude flowing from the source and stop up the works. If that is successful, cement would follow, permanently sealing the well.

“This job has taken quite some time to prepare for,” said Doug Suttles, BP chief operating officer for exploration and production. “It is not unique and new, but it is unique and new for this depth.”

BP calls the method “a complex operation requiring sophisticated diagnostic work and precise execution. As a result, it involves significant uncertainties …”

Suttles said Monday afternoon that “top kill” was unlikely to begin until daybreak this morning in order to accommodate the manpower and heavy equipment being used to perform the operation. It could be completed within 10 hours, or it could take two days. A command vessel, the Helix Q4000, has been paired with a ship containing mud for the operation. Two backup mud ships are also at the site.

“We need to make sure this fluid goes down the well bore and not out the riser,” Suttles said. “By (this) evening we should know if it was successful. The flow would be dead.”

This is the latest attempt by BP to slow or stop the flow of oil from the broken riser pipe that crumpled when the doomed oil rig sank last month.

The efforts included placing a large containment dome over a portion of the riser pipe and siphoning oil to the surface. That plan failed when ice crystals formed in the top of the cofferdam. Such crystals are hydrates that result when natural gas mixes with seawater at the 37 degree temperature found at those depths.

Another, called “top hat,” which was to involve the use of a smaller containment chamber, was called off soon after the equipment was lowered to the ocean floor.

The insertion of a 4-inch tube into the 21-inch riser pipe, intended to siphon crude from the riser, has had some success but it is preventing less than half the oil from spewing unchecked into the Gulf.

A method to be tried if “top kill” fails is called “junk shot,” essentially the flooding of the BOP with scrap tire chunks, rope knots and even golf balls in hopes of stopping the flow.

Suttles said even more options are available to BP engineers studying the situation. One of those, LMRP would entail capping the lower marine riser package by first cutting away the leaking riser pipe then installing a containment unit above the flow. A seal would be used to help keep out seawater and prevent hydrate buildup.

BP could also attempt to install a shutoff valve or another blowout preventer above the existing BOP.

Company and government officials agree that two relief wells are the best hope for permanently stopping the flow if everything else fails, but neither are expected to come to fruition for nearly three months. Drilling of the first relief well began May 2, and work on another began May 16.

Both Kent Wells, BP senior vice president, and Russell Hoshman, a petroleum engineer with the Minerals Management Service (MMS), said Tuesday morning that “top kill” stands a good chance of success because of the extensive testing that continues to go into the process, even as the hours tick away.

“MMS engineers are reviewing the procedures to be sure they won’t make the situation worse,” Hoshman said. He contends that both BP and the federal oversight agency are reviewing all tests, and the “top kill” procedure will be optimized for effectiveness based on those results.

Asked why company officials delayed “top kill” for so long, Wells said, “We have been designing ‘top kill’ since day one. This is a path we’ve always intended to be taking … Our No. 1 priority is to stop the flow of oil from that well, and we’re committed to that.”

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar expressed anger Sunday over what he said was BP’s failure to meet several deadlines to resolve the situation, and suggested the federal government would take control of the undersea operation if suitable action wasn’t forthcoming.

Suttles acknowledged the government has the power to relieve BP of its oversight, but claimed the company is doing all it can.

“I appreciate the frustration and I share that with the Secretary,” he said. “I wish this would come to a conclusion as quickly as possible.”

The federal government has appointed a flow rate technical team (FRTT) to determine the well flow rate. The FRTT includes the US Coast Guard, NOAA, MMS, Department of Energy and the US Geological Survey. BP officials said the company will continue to promptly provide all information necessary to make as accurate an assessment as possible of the rate of flow.

Dispersant update

The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard are taking steps that could reduce the volume of dispersants applied in the Gulf. While officials acknowledge dispersants are less toxic and shorter-lived than the oil, much remains unknown about their impact on the environment when used in these unprecedented volumes.

That’s why the two agencies are directing BP to use dispersants in the most effective and efficient way possible, thereby minimizing the total amount used.

Late last week, federal regulators gave BP a deadline in which to switch to pre-approved and less toxic dispersants than the Corexit products currently being applied on the water’s surface and at the wellhead, but the company declined to make a change. Their usage is banned in Canada and the United Kingdom.

The EPA and the Coast Guard responded by calling BP’s effort “insufficient and (lacking) sufficient analysis. We are concerned that BP seemed, in their response, more interested in defending their initial decisions than analyzing possible better options.”

Suttles countered by saying, “If they are available, we will switch to that product.” He claimed a product with less toxicity and greater effectiveness was indeed sought, but the company was unable to find one available in suitable quantities.

Monitoring data collected so far indicates that the underwater use of dispersants is effective at breaking up the oil and, to this point, does not seem to have had any significant impacts on aquatic life, according to the EPA. Using the dispersant underwater at the source of the leak also requires far less dispersant to be applied. The EPA and the Coast Guard therefore instructed BP that they should focus the use of dispersants underwater and only use the dispersants on the surface under specific conditions. The government contends this could cut overall dispersant use by at least half.

“No one envisioned the scale and scope” of dispersant use, USCG Rear Adm. Mary Landry said Monday. The EPA and other government scientists will verify all data presented by BP, using parallel, independent tests to determine if BP’s argument that Corexit remains the best alternative is accurate and supported by science.

Close to home

NOAA charts suggest the oil sheen remains nearly 80 miles southwest of Mobile Bay, but the Zone of Uncertainty inches closer northward, toward the Mississippi barrier islands. Tar balls and other oil in the zone is not trackable using satellite imagery.

Contractors hired by the city of Fairhope continue to monitor booms placed from Point Clear to the Fairhope Yacht Club. Assistant Public Works Director Ken Eslava said the State and Federal Booming Contingency Plan was completed Monday morning, and maintenance of those booms continues.

BP has shifted many of their deployment assets to other local areas, but retains a diminished presence at Pier Street boat ramp. That enabled the city to reopen boat ramp to the public Tuesday morning.

Eslava advises boaters to use caution while operating a vessel in the area of deployed booms. He said each area where the visible orange booms are floating should be considered a no-wake zone.

The city will seek to have BP install boom per the Fairhope Booming Strategy, a plan which was submitted to the Unified Command in Mobile at the inception of this incident. Eslava said this boom will connect to the existing 4,000 feet in front of the Pier Street Operations Post, and run around the west end of the Municipal Pier, then to shore north of the Fairhope Yacht Club.

The Vessels of Opportunity Program has been initiated here by BP, he noted. The program puts local boaters and fishermen to work monitoring deployed booms. None will perform repairs or cleaning operations.

Spanish Fort officials have been working closely with BP officials as well as state, county and Alabama Department of Environmental Management representatives to ensure the city’s most environmentally sensitive areas remain protected against the potential threat from encroaching oil.

Although BP officials in Houston have not yet signed off on the plan, Mayor Joe Bonner said Alabama Gov. Bob Riley’s office has approved a contingency plan to boom four sensitive areas should oil reach the nine-mile marker in the Gulf of Mexico necessitating closure of Mobile Bay. Should that trigger event happen, Bonner said the Spanish Fort portion of the state-approved plan ensures the four areas will be “wet staged” for immediate deployment while minimizing the risk of vandalism or theft of idle boom during the interim.

The plan uses $500,000 of the $25 million BP allocated for oil spill response in Mobile and Baldwin counties, and targets a bulkhead just east of the Tensaw River; an area referred to as the Crossover, where Interstate-10 crosses over the Causeway; an Apalachee River inlet; and a portion of a Blakeley River inlet.

Original plans for the Tensaw inlet involved placement of one, 3,000-foot piece of 18-inch boom, but Bonner said current speeds in excess of 0.7 knots proved too strong for the material. In turn, ADEM officials have decided to place three, 1,000-foot pieces of 4-inch boom across the area at angles, creating a pooling area for oil that can then be removed.

“It will relieve the pressure,” Bonner said of the sectioned booming.

Meanwhile, three inlets about 300 yards east of the Crossover allow water to move north and south. Bonner said 8-inch boom will be placed on the south side and the north side.

The Apalachee inlet, he said, will be protected by a primary layer of 8-inch boom and a secondary layer of 4-inch boom, and cleanup crews will have access to the pooling area it creates from the Causeway.

The Blakeley portion will employ the same 8-inch and 4-inch boom strategy, but a boat or barge will be required to facilitate cleanup should any oil accumulate.

To date, Bonner said, two 400-foot pieces of boom have already disappeared from the Crossover location, making wet staging a necessity to keep thieves and vandals from impeding the ability to respond quickly.

“We worked on this nonstop (last week), but we’d leave a meeting and then everything would change 30 minutes later. We got approval from the governor’s office late Friday afternoon, but this is the first time everyone on the (City) Council will see what we’ve been talking about,” Bonner said immediately prior to Monday’s council work session and regular meeting.

“I’m a lot more comfortable with this than I was two weeks ago,” Bonner said.

The Daphne City Council held an emergency meeting on Monday night, but voted down proposals to streamline the approval process for oil spill-related purchases.

With the next full council meeting not expected until after the Memorial Day holiday, the measures proposed would have established a legal basis for speedy action to be taken in the interim. Some council members were concerned about the lack of information available to them about how the money would be spent, however.

“I think from previous discussion it is clear the council is not prepared to write a blank check, when we don’t know the scope,” said Councilman Derek Boulware. The city of Daphne has received $500,000 from the funds set aside by BP to cover cleanup costs.

Around 25,000 feet of boom has been deployed so far, including the mouth of Weeks Bay, around Great Point Clear and north to Gravine Island (on Blakeley River). An additional 2,500 feet of boom is staged at the Pier Street Operations Post, primarily for maintenance purposes, according to Eslava.

Staff writers Kelli M. Dugan and Simon Duffy contributed to this report.