Texas cleaning up oil blobs on South Padre Island

[ensho]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_texas_beaches_oil


Gooey oil blobs as big as basketballs have been washing up on the sandy beaches of South Padre Island in Texas, officials said Thursday.

The Texas General Land Office said it doesn't know what is causing the tar-like blobs, but authorities were working to clean up the popular tourist destination. Beaches have not been closed.

Crews "scooped out a bunch of tar balls on the beach," agency spokesman Jim Suydam told The Associated Press. "We're doing analysis of the currents to track it back to the source as well as collecting some of the tar balls for chemical analysis to see where it came from."

At least seven 55-gallon drums of oil have been removed since Wednesday morning after tourists began calling in reports of seeing blobs of oil on the beach, Suydam said.

"We don't know the source. We suspect it's coming from south of the border," he said. Texas authorities are in the process of contacting Mexican officials for help pinpointing the contamination, he said.
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yuck

why must it come from Mexico? we have hundreds of rigs in the gulf plus oil tankers coming and going.

[babylonsister]

1. You are correct, the rigs in the gulf produce a fair amount of

this crapola that washes up on the beach. I lived in Corpus Christi in the 80s and the rigs were blamed then, because this mess was washing up then, too. Same as it ever was, yet maybe worse. But MX is being blamed?

Oh, and WD-40 works wonders. Every time I hit the beach, I had to use it.

[imdjh]

4. I just read about that. Now I know why my friend in Houston dissuaded me from Galveston

The first time I was in Houston (in August), I wanted to go to Galveston but my friend said, "It's really hot, and that beach isn't as nice as you think it is." He didn't mention tarballs that I can recall.

Until today, when I thought of tarballs I was thinking of something more like a big black slightly sticky basketball or something.

[Jack_DeLeon]

12. Not necessarily tarballs he was talking about...

The currents wash alot of trash and other crap from all along the gulf coast onto our beaches.

Our beaches can be nice at times when the local governments clean them up usually before spring break and whatnot, but its generally a loosing battle.

They are nice for what they are, but just as long as you dont have any expectations of them being nice tropical beach with crystal blue water, cause thats definitely not what they are.

[cdsilv]

2. big boats (freighters, tankers) flushing their bilges....n/t

[imdjh]

3. Perhaps because they know the currents?

Also, there it cannot be assumed that these tarballs come from oil rigs Tarballs in that region are also naturally occurring.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/ranch/readme/tarball.php

Two currents conspire to deposit as much tar on Texas as possible. One runs southwesterly, beginning around Louisiana and bringing oil from that coast. The other runs northeasterly, beginning off Mexico�s coast and doing likewise with the oil that has seeped out down there.

[callous taoboy]

5. So what about the blobs of oil...

South Padre Island is toast. Like anyone who manages that island seems to really care a shit about the condition of the island. The rape of SPI is a fucking shame, and all these oil blobs replace are the human blobs that will stay away along with the diapers, cigarette butts and beer cans they trash the beach with.

On edit: Sorry, trying to give up caffeine at the moment.

[Liberal In Texas]

6. When I used to go to South Padre there were always tar balls and jellyfish. n/t

[callous taoboy]

7. We used to go down each summer from 1968 - 1974.

Paradise. Tar was present but nothing like today. I went last summer and I might as well have saved the time and gone to Galveston.

[sammytko]

8. I spent a week there recently and it was beautiful - now this

I hope they find out what caused it. The Corpus area beaches are always full of tar and jellyfish, but the S. Padre beach WAS very clean.

[Shagbark Hickory]

9. Are you sure that's oil???! nt

[Kermitt Gribble]

10. Yay!

Can't wait until we get this shit in FL when they're drilling 3 miles off our coast!

[damntexdem]

11. Hmm, major concentration of oil rigs in the Gulf and much tanker traffic.

Where, oh where, could the oil be coming from? ;-)