Tar balls have reached Texas beaches, and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 has now hit the shoreline of each and 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 the BP oil spill approaches 130 million gallons and counting, 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.
As the tar balls start to hit beaches, Texas is in denial
Tar balls were found on Sunday in eastern Galveston Island in Texas were from the oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico 2010, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. As outlined by the Houston Chronicle, 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 that were passing through the BP oil spill are supposed to go through a decontamination station before reaching the coastline. Texas authorities still insist the oil slick that has fouled the beaches of other Gulf states is not coming their way.
Cleanup of the oil spill stopped because of bad weather
Oil spill business BP said it is making better the oil skimming efforts, despite the fact that bad weather has made that impossible. Gulf tourism faced a bleak Fourth of July weekend that had nothing to do with the stormy weather. As outlined by AOL News, 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, AccuWeather.com reports. Strong winds still held up oil skimming, burning oil or laying boom Tuesday.
Tested was huge oil skimming ship
Oil spill cleanup efforts could be aided by a vessel billed as the world’s biggest oil skimmer. It was reported by the New York Times that the Taiwanese-flagged ship A Whale is 3 and a half football fields long and 10 stories high. It is got vents on its bow, which are expected to skim as much as 21 million gallons of oil-tainted water each day. But stiff winds and choppy seas have made that difficult so far. A Whale is one of 6,563 ships, along with some 113 aircraft that BP is paying for within the cleanup of the oil spill and containment. The spill price tag has hit $3.12 billion.
Forecasted to hit Miami are tar balls
As skimming is on hold and also the BP oil leak continues to spew up to 60,000 gallons a day into the sea, NOAA forecasts the loop current brings a 61-80 percent chance that tar balls will reach the coasts of the Florida Keys, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. It was reported by USA Today that NOAA said the coastlines probably — 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’s “increasingly unlikely” that oil will affect any of the areas above North Carolina as the Gulf Stream moves from the continental United States at Cape Hatteras.
More information available at these web sites:
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
