Tar balls have reached Texas beaches, and also the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 has now hit the shoreline of every gulf state. Driven by winds from Hurricane Alex, the BP oil spill is spreading as bad weather continued to stop the cleanup efforts. Tar balls have also reached Louisiana’s Lake Ponchetrain as oil creeps inland. As the BP oil spill approaches 130 million gallons, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expanded the no-fishing zone within the gulf and said tar balls have a good chance of washing ashore as far away as Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
Source for this article: Tar balls hit Texas beaches as weather disrupts cleanup of the oil spill by Personal Money Store
Texas in denial as tar balls hit beaches
Tar balls were found on Sunday in eastern Galveston Island in Texas were from the oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico 2010, as outlined by the U.S. Coast Guard. It was reported by the Houston Chronicle that officials believe the tar balls reached the Galveston area from a ship that got tar balls stuck or attached to its side traveling through the BP oil spill area. Ships passing through the BP oil spill are supposed to go through a decontamination station before reaching the coastline. Texas authorities nevertheless insist that the oil slick that has fouled the beaches of other Gulf states is not coming anywhere towards them.
Bad weather stops cleanup of the oil spill
Oil spill company BP said it’s stepping up oil skimming efforts, despite the fact bad weather has made that extremely hard. Gulf tourism faced a very sad Fourth of July weekend that had nothing to do with the stormy weather. AOL News reports that Hurricane Alex shut down oil skimming last week and a new tropical system is brewing east of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. A new storm may strike Texas and Louisiana on Wednesday, as reported by AccuWeather.com. Strong winds and high seas still held up oil skimming, burning oil or laying boom Tuesday.
Oil skimming ship that was huge was tested
Oil spill cleanup efforts may soon be aided by a vessel billed as the world’s biggest oil skimmer. As outlined by the New York Times, the Taiwanese-flagged ship A Whale is three and a half football fields long and 10 stories high. It’s outfitted with vents on its bow, which are intended to skim as much as 21 million gallons of oil-tainted water each day. So far, the stiff wind has made it impossible. A Whale is one of more than 6,563 ships, along with some 113 aircraft that BP is paying for in the oil spill cleanup. BP’s price tag for the spill has hit $3.12 billion.
Tar balls were forecasted for Miami
As skimming is on hold and also the BP oil leak continues to spew to the sea, NOAA forecasts the loop current brings a 61-80 percent chance that tar balls will reach within 20 miles of the coasts of the Florida Keys, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. USA Today reports that NOAA said the coastlines most likely — 81 to 100 percent — to be hit by oil extend from the Mississippi River Delta to the western panhandle of Florida, where tar balls are already washing ashore. NOAA says Chances are slight — 1 to 20 percent — that oil will reach the Eastern Seaboard, and it is “increasingly unlikely” that oil will affect areas above North Carolina as the Gulf Stream moves from the continental United States at Cape Hatteras.
Discover more about this topic here:
Houston Chronicle
chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7096109.html
AOL News
aolnews.com/article/tar-balls-reach-texas-shores-amid-new-storm-threat/19542753
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/07/06/us/06latest.html?scp=1&sq=A Whale oil spill&st=cse
USA Today
content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/07/us-report-bp-spill-likely-to-reach-florida-keys-miami/1
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