BP says it is moving ahead with plans to try to clog the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico -- with mud. According to NPR's Richard Harris, the procedure is called a "top kill." He says it has worked on blowouts before, but it has never been tried in water this deep.
According to BP, "the success of individual options cannot be assured." Still, the company hopes to try it on Wednesday.
Company officials say they have gear in place to measure the huge build-up of pressure inside the damaged well:
Sophisticated diagnostic work using remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) will precede the 'top kill' to allow the procedure to be planned in detail. The knowledge from this diagnostic work will be instrumental in determining whether to proceed with this option.
That information is necessary in order to go forward with their plan to plug up the well by dumping in heavy fluid called drilling mud.
If it doesn't work, BP's newest back-up plan is to chop off the leaking pipe right at the top of the blowout preventer, and to lower a gadget over the leak. It's called a LMRP, and it's designed to capture all the oil and gas that is currently spewing into the ocean.
Update at 2:19 p.m. ET: David Nicholas, a spokesman for BP, tells NPR that the issue -- of whether or not to continue a live stream of the oil spill tomorrow -- is "under review."
Update at 1:56 p.m. ET: Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) issued a press release, criticizing BP for deciding to take down the live feed of the oil leak during the "top kill" attempt. (Markey was an advocate for making a the stream public.)
BP informed Rep. Markey's office that the live feed would be terminated some time early Wednesday morning, and would continue to be offline until after the attempt at the so-called "top kill" is completed.
"It is outrageous that BP would kill the video feed for the top kill. This BP blackout will obscure a vital moment in this disaster," said Rep. Markey, who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in the Energy and Commerce Committee. "After more than a month of spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP is essentially saying to the American people the solution will not be televised."
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