Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo, Jakarta – A plan to plug the Lapindo exploratory gas well at the heart of the East Java mudflow might be ineffective and dangerous, an expert said Tuesday.
The national mudflow response team plans to drop high-density chained balls into the well in an attempt to curb the pressure from below, a move that is also hoped to reduce the volume of the mud coming out of the well by 70 percent.
"Plugging the well with chained balls made of sand and iron pellets might have repercussions from below and create a strong burst of balls (from the well) afterwards," said Dodd Nawangsidi, an engineer from the Bandung Institute of Technology, at a seminar on the mudflow.
Doddy, speaking at the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BBPT)'s two-day International Geological Workshop on the Sidoarjo Mud Volcano, said the plan would not last long as a strong burst was likely to occur within a few months.
"The plan actually sounds rather funny as it's generally unfeasible," he said of the project, which could cost up to Rp 4 billion (US$442,000).
Soffian Hadi, a geologist from the national team, said that the project would be completed in several careful stages should it go ahead, with 25 to 100 balls being placed in the well each day.
"However, this resolution still needs to be studied further so as to check its feasibility," he told reporters.
He said the balls, measuring 20 and 40 centimeters in diameter and weighing up to 350 kilograms each would be attached four at a time to chains. "A solid crane will lower the balls down the well from between two towers," he added.
The team has been dealing with the mud by channeling it to the Porong River, which then carries it out to sea. Relief walls have also been used to stem the flow, although critics have said that they are not enough.
BBPT said the efforts to try to stop the mud from below ground were unprecedented and that no one had tried to block up a mud volcano before.
"Indonesia is unique because in other countries, what we call a mud volcano occurs far away from the people's residences or infrastructure," said Yusuf Surachman, a BPPT researcher.
Yusuf said people should continue to be concerned about the issue. "Just because time passes does not mean that we should be aloof to the problem," Yusuf said.
A professor from Kyoto University in Japan, James Mori, who oversees the university's disaster prevention research institute, said that there was no technology available to properly curb a mudflow.
"There's no way to stop it now. However, many people have tried to stop it. If anyone has a new idea then they should go ahead and try it," he said.