“What he’s doing is really admirable,” said Bethany Kraft, executive director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group. “He’s taking things into his own hands instead of waiting for other people to do something about it.”

Image Volunteers worked to assemble a boom behind barges set up at the mouth of Weeks Bay as part of a plan to keep spilled oil out. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Mr. Hinton went into action the first week of May, calling a town meeting to discuss ideas for protecting Weeks Bay, an estuary off Mobile Bay that supports 19 federally protected species, including bald eagles and wood storks. The residents came up with a solution that is unique on the gulf, said Malissa Valdes, a spokeswoman for the unified command, which approves all responses in federally governed waters.

From the start, the townspeople were unsatisfied with the unified command’s plan for Weeks Bay  a strand of floating surface barriers known as boom stretched across the bay’s mouth. Because of tidal currents, any oil on top of the water could splash over the boom, then into the bay and up the Fish and Magnolia Rivers into nurseries for area wildlife. A plan to string boom across Mobile Bay failed when water shredded the barrier.

Mr. Hinton’s solution was simple: run a wall of barges across the mouth of Weeks Bay to block the current, then run five layers of boom behind it  two to block the oil, and three strands of absorbent boom to soak up any oil that got through the containment layers.

The town bought the boom right away, before an increase in demand nearly quadrupled the price. Money for the project came from the state, which received $25 million from BP for emergency response efforts.