Interior Secretary Ken Salazar insisted the full force of the federal government was bearing down on BP, which is legally responsible for dealing with the ruptured pipe gushing oil from the wreckage of an offshore rig.

"I have no question that BP is throwing everything at the problem to try to resolve it because this is an existential crisis for one of the world's largest companies," Salazar said.

"Do I have confidence that they know exactly what they're doing? No not completely."

Salazar said he had been good to his word when it came to ensuring the British oil giant was fully committed in responding to the environmental disaster and indicated the government would step in if required.

"If we find that they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately and we'll move forward to make sure that everything is being done to protect the people of the Gulf Coast, the ecological values of the Gulf Coast, and the values of the American people."

Salazar noted that the federal government had sent a team of scientific "all-stars that are now leading an Apollo 13-type effort" to BP's Houston headquarters.

"They have pushed BP in every way that they can to kill the well and they have pushed BP in every way that they can to stop the pollution," he said.

"If there is a way to kill this well, they will find it. If there is a way to stop this pollution from spreading, they will find it."

The best option at the moment is to proceed with a "top kill" which involves injecting heavy drilling fluids into the ruptured pipe, Salazar said.

Originally scheduled to begin on Sunday, it has now been delayed until Wednesday as a result of the complexity of positioning the equipment some 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below sea level for an operation that has never been done at such depths.

"Once the procedure is triggered, what you will see quickly is a set of decisions that lead down a number of different pathways," Salazar said.

"If top kill succeeds, the deal is over and we just move forward into what is essentially then a program of dealing with the oil that has spilled and protecting the ecological resources of the Gulf.

"If top kill fails, it triggers in another set of plans that will be effectuating quickly."

Even at the lowest estimates, more than six million gallons of crude have entered Gulf waters since the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22, two days after an explosion that claimed 11 workers' lives.

Independent experts have warned that the true size of the spill could be at least ten times higher.

Salazar said the nation's top scientists were also working to get an accurate estimate on the flow rate out of the ruptured pipe and the actual size of the slick.

"Do I trust BP?" Salazar said in response to a journalist's question.

"The fact is, this incident was never supposed to happen in the first place, because there was a number of different fail-safe arrangements that were supposed to be in place."

While the incident is still being investigated, Salazar said a number of things went wrong: "bad cementing, bad casing, bad blowout preventers, bad lots of things that went wrong here."

"Those are BP's responsibilities along with the rest of its contractors," he warned a day after President Barack Obama hinted for the first time that criminal charges could be laid.

earlier related report
Oil and fishing support same families in Louisiana
Grand Isle, Louisiana (AFP) May 23, 2010 - Fishing and the oil industry live side by side in Louisiana, sometimes within the same family.

"Everybody is connected," says Ronald Ledet.

His brother is a fisherman, while he spent eight years on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and his sons have followed in his footsteps.

The oil industry and fishing along with tourism are the economic lungs of this southern US state.

And even though a growing oil spill in the Gulf has confined fishing vessels to their ports and put the brakes on tourism, Ledet argues that people in the area know what they owe to the oil industry.

Sporting a broad-brimmed straw hat, 72-year-old Ledet inspected Saturday gooey oil residue that hit the beach at Grand Isle this week.

Even at the lowest estimates, more than six million gallons of crude have soiled Gulf waters since the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig sank spectacularly some 52 miles (84 kilometers) offshore on April 22, two days after an explosion that killed 11 workers.

Just how much oil is gushing from the rig's wreckage has been a major point of contention, with BP initially putting the figure at 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, a day.

Independent experts examining video of the ruptured pipe have estimated that the flow from the two leaks could be as high as 120,000 barrels per day.

Ledet spent seven years in the fishing industry before switching to black gold, and he worked in that industry as an electrician for 30 years, including eight on an oil rig.

His two sons, Ronald Junior and Lance, also work for big oil, while his brother has worked on a shrimp boat all his life.

"After years and years of drilling, it had to happen," says Ledet, looking at the oil washing ashore. "The rigs are all over, you can see it."

Susan Villiere, 52, who lives in New Orleans but has three boats and often comes to Grand Isle to spend the weekend fishing, says the two industries are very interconnected.

"It is so mixed," she says. "It's very good for fishing because platforms attract the fish. I don't have even a friend who wants to shut down the rigs. They are angry not to work. Everybody is angry because they want to see action. But I have not heard even one person who wants to shut it down."

On Thursday, US authorities tripled the size of a Gulf area closed to fishing. As a result, many fishing boats have remained at their moorings.

"We just want them to do it right," Clint Guidry, president of the Louisiana Shrimpers' Association, told AFP. "Many things shouldn't have been tolerated. Everybody needs gas, everybody needs oil. We need it."

In this state where shrimp pizza is a specialty, the Papa Rod, a large fishing vessel moored at Port Fourchon, symbolizes the ties between the two industries.

While technically a fishing boat, the Papa Rod never tried to catch a fish. Its crew is employed by the oil industry.

The boat works at the site of old dismantled rigs and casts its net around them to facilitate fishing for other vessels.

"It's tragic. It's a mess," complains Andre Savoie, the captain of the Papa Rod. "It's going to be very very difficult to fix it. You can't close the rigs."

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