With an estimated 200,000 gallons a day of oil continuing to leak into the Gulf of Mexico, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said he has decided to take matters into his own hands.

After oil flowed into Barataria Bay, covering at least 12 miles of Louisiana’s marshes, coating the land and two pelican rookeries in crude, Jindal announced that he planned to move ahead with building sand barriers to protect the state’s coastline.

Just two days ago Jindal urged the approval of an emergency permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build more barriers. The Corps of Engineers is still reviewing the idea of sand barriers but hasn’t responded.

Jindal said he was no longer waiting for approval from the Corps of Engineers, according to The Associated Press.

On Saturday, tensions between BP and local authorities came to a boiling point in Jefferson Parish when local officials declared they were going to commandeer 40 boats of fishermen who had signed up to help with the spill but whose boats had since remained idle. They had spotted oil moving past the shoreline beaches through passes into Barataria Bay, which is surrounded by wildlife-rich wetlands.

“BP was not acting quickly enough in getting the skimmers and the booming boats out,” said Thomas Capella, a Jefferson Parish councilman. “If they weren’t going to do it, we’re going to do it ourselves.”

As soon as the boats were prepared, BP stepped in and began working to send the boats out, Capella said. As of Sunday, about 50 boats in the area were working to contain the oil and prevent more from seeping through the passes, he said.

With no signs of the oil spill stopping soon, BP said one of its efforts to slow the leak was no longer working effectively, according to The AP.

A mile-long tube has been used to siphon oil from the well to a ship. But BP spokesman John Curry said on Sunday that it siphoned some 57,120 gallons of oil within the past 24 hours, a sharp drop from the 92,400 gallons of oil a day that the device was sucking up on Friday.

The amount BP has collected in the tube has varied since it was installed last week. The device was siphoning 42,000 gallons of oil a day early that week, but at times Thursday, the siphon was collecting oil at a rate of as much as 210,000 gallons a day.

BP refused to provide day-by-day figures on how much oil the tube was diverting. Curry said the rate is expected to vary widely, in part because it is not just oil but also natural gas that is leaking. On Sunday, for instance, the siphon collected more than 7 million cubic feet of gas.

Because of claims that the oil spill was a manmade failure, the U.S. Department of Justice said it has began gathering information on the matter. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, however, that he would not release information on whether a criminal investigation has been opened.

The department was asked by the head of the Senate’s environmental committee, Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to determine if BP made false or misleading claims about its ability to prevent a serious oil spill, according to the AP.

BP has announced that on Tuesday it would try to shut off the leaking well with a “top kill,” in which cement and mud are pumped into the well. But the process of sealing offshore oil wells with cement has failed many times, the AP determined in an investigation.

On Monday, the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar; and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, and six members of a Senate delegation will be in the area. They are to fly over the affected areas and meet with Gov. Jindal and local officials.

In an attempt to connect with the concerns of the local community, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, a native of New Orleans, plans to visit residents of Venice and New Orleans. Jackson grew up in Pontchartrain Park in New Orleans and attended Tulane University.

In Mississippi, an environmental group called Coastal Rivers organized a cleanup of the garbage and debris surrounding Mississippi’s waterways and marshlands. According to The AP, the spokesman for the organization called it “a pre-emptive strike” against the oil spill. They plan to clean as much as they can so there will be less if the oil reaches the marshes in Mississippi.

Campbell Robertson contributed reporting

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