Gulf Oil Spill: Eight-Inch Tar Balls Wash Up On Beach

PORT FOURCHON, La. — Louisiana wildlife officials say huge tar balls have littered the beach at Port Fourchon, some of them 8 inches across.

Laura Deslatte, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said Friday that the glossy globs were found along the entire beach at Port Fourchon. Workers from her department have not yet seen so much oil washed up anywhere else.

A news release said that on Thursday, biologists found about 25 nickel-sized tar balls per square foot from the beach's southwestern end to its midpoint.

They also found more than a dozen tar balls on the banks of Belle Pass, a few hundred yards north of the waterway's mouth.

A Coast Guard spokesman also says significant amounts of oil have washed onto the Chandeleur Islands – part of a national wildlife refuge.

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On the Net:

Photos of tar balls on Port Fourchon: http://bit.ly/9SUWGG

Comments

[wassilij]

05:43 PM on 05/17/2010

There is a major coverup going on with this oil spill.....a microbe exists that will literally eat this oil and neutralize the toxic effects of this oil in the Gulf of Mexico!The major corporations refuse to use it because they cannot patent it, own it, or sell it because its very inexpensive....It is available all over the world!!...It' time for BP to stop the BS...and use what has been proven to work,,,,

http://www.gatorinternational.com/

[MCope]

03:53 AM on 05/16/2010

Perhaps it's time to re-introduce tarring and feathering, especially for the blame-shifters. Take them down to the beach, roll them in the tar. Add the feathers of the dead birds.

And allow them to clean themselves up AFTER they've cleaned everything else up.

[Moonlighter]

12:09 AM on 05/16/2010

BP does not have enough money to even begin paying for their destruction of the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf Coast communities.

[jazzman1469]

11:48 AM on 05/15/2010

I can't wait for the 2010 Hurricane season beginning in just 15 days!!! Should be a real Oilmeggeden!!! Be kinda hard to try all these different methods with 100 mile per hour winds comin at ya. And now they are talking about during a hurricane oil rain coming inland...This is completely F****ed

[Gilliam G]

06:57 AM on 05/15/2010

Cry For The Fishermen (Gulf Oil Spill Disaster)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXYs3MQaQ6k

[MajorMalfunction]

03:56 AM on 05/15/2010

Is there a web site where I can order an Obama-BP TarBall? Just saying.

[Paladine]

01:50 AM on 05/15/2010

Is BP ignoring a solution that might save the Gulf? Esquire:

"There's a potential solution to the Gulf oil spill that neither BP, nor the federal government, nor anyone — save a couple intuitive engineers — seems willing to try. As The Politics Blog reported on Tuesday in an interview with former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, the untapped solution involves using empty supertankers to suck the spill off the surface, treat and discharge the contaminated water, and either salvage or destroy the slick."

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/gulf-oil-spill-supertankers-051310#ixzz0nyRlJjLv

[Moonlighter]

12:10 AM on 05/16/2010

There are already boats specifically designed for this purpose. They are called oil-skimmers.

[leptonpulsar]

12:02 AM on 05/15/2010

The following links are to be cut and pasted into browser address they
Contain an explanation and diagrams of a new method of relevance to oil spill containment.

http://www.wix.com/leptonpulsar/oil-recovery

http://www.wix.com/leptonpulsar/oil-recovery-diagram--1

http://www.wix.com/leptonpulsar/oil-recovery-diagram-2

http://www.wix.com/leptonpulsar/oil-recovery-diagram-3
p.s. 05/14/2010
Some day in the future a whole new industry could be spawned, submersible tankers could dock to well heads directly, transporting oil from even deeper depths, could also be applied to methane gas collection from the sea floor, more than a mile deep.

[mi]

05:34 PM on 05/14/2010

Sadness beyond words watching this unfold, the oil mercilessly
pouring out of that ruptured pipe.

[Blarg]

06:21 PM on 05/14/2010

... its sacred virginity being plundered over and over again ...

Oh wait, wrong window.

[wassilij]

05:13 PM on 05/14/2010

“Whats needed is a corporate death penalty.......If any corporation like BP or Halburton causes a disaster to occur.....The entire corporation including all assets are dismantled and all assets liquidated to pay for the cleanup and economic losses felt by those whose livelihoods they have destroyed.........making it RETROACTIVE!!!.......NO more Halburton...or BP or whatever CORPORATIONS were involved!!!
Not a single one of these Rat B@stards could man up and take responsibility for this disaster that has ruined the entire southern coast of the US...How much longer are WE the people going to allow these CORPORATIONS to destroy our life support system?.......DESTROY THESE CORPORATIONS....Starting NOW !!....No second chances....no 75 mile limit BS,,,,
If this was the policy from the beginning....Safety measures and plans ABC and D would be in place.....the only plan they had was called GREED
.......One coast down ......Two to Go.....Are you willing to take that risk? Make them pay...with a CORPORATE DEATH PENALTY!!!....RETROACTIVE!!”

[Ali Rza]

05:19 PM on 05/14/2010

I'm down with you wassilij CORPORATE DEATH PENALTY is a great common sense idea.

[H Allan Pump]

12:55 AM on 05/15/2010

H Allan Pump
BP owners aren't even bothered when reality shows how well they and the rest of the Cartels have control of our government, the whole environment and everybody's world. If we had a government it would nationalize the companies responsible, fire all the Chiefs and let the Indians get it fixed.

[rpr]

05:03 PM on 05/14/2010

Most of the cost for this disaster will be borne by the taxpayer.

Rightfully so. He elected the officials that installed the legal system based on corruption ("campaign contributions","lobbying","PACs") and never punished them for it. Let him pay I say. He must like this way. No way that poor corporations like BP, Transocean and Halliburton could be liable for this regrettable Act of God.

[CBsez]

05:11 PM on 05/14/2010

Could you repeat that in English?

[Michael Cruise]

05:54 PM on 05/14/2010

for crying out loud...just zip it already.

[GoogleMaster]

04:54 PM on 05/14/2010

What if it breaks out of the Gulf and surrounds us (US). It would probably have to seep through the Panama canal to do that, but the way things have been going ..

[deeambro]

04:46 PM on 05/14/2010

Hang 'em high!

[ChangeAmerica]

04:38 PM on 05/14/2010

Has this issue changed your stance on offshore drilling? Do you think President Obama has acted swiftly? Find out more on how we can change America! www.apvoice.com

[Blarg]

04:35 PM on 05/14/2010

Really, shouldn't The Great Cthulhu come up from the depths and just get this whole destroying the world thing over with already? If we haven't laid enough groundwork yet, what else is really left? We have laid waste, sacrificed humans, babbled strange mantras about the moral perfection of the free market and the inherent safety of market-driven self-regulation by corporations ... what has been left undone?

I expect we'll at least see Nyarlathotep fielding questions from reporters soon ...

[rflctammt]

04:51 PM on 05/14/2010

Ironically, man really does not have the capacity to destroy the earth, only the earth's ability to sustiain human life. We are so egocentrical that we often forget how long the earth existed without our presence, and how long it is likely to exist long after we have screwed up our own nearly perfect planet.

"We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never clearly understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it."
- Wendell Berry

[rpr]

04:53 PM on 05/14/2010

We don't need no stinkin' Chtulhu, we can very well finish the job ourselves, thank you very much.