Moving East?
The Pensacola News Journal reports that Suspected tar balls wash up on Pensacola Beach
Although about 100 suspected tar balls picked up on Pensacola Beach on Wednesday have not been linked to the oil spill, they have been sent to a lab for analysis.
A shoreline cleanup assessment team retrieved the material, and it likely will take a week to get the results.
The tar ball finds were part of an oil spill update county officials provided to Santa Rosa Island Authority board members Wednesday evening.
If any of these tar balls or the roughly 100 collected on Perdido Key over the weekend are associated with the BP spill, it’s the first evidence the oil spill has reached Northwest Florida shores, said Keith Wilkins, Escambia County deputy bureau chief for neighborhood and community services.
You will notice the use of the word “evidence”, an indicator that BP isn’t the only one thinking about law suits. Alas, past experience with BP says that any real settlements will require winning in court.
It’s hard to know whether the sightings of tar balls indicates something going on, or people taking the time to report the junk on the beach. Even if they do find that they contain oil from the spill, the oil could be from vessels working for BP going to and from the Bayou Chico facility, or vessels passing by in the Intercoastal Waterway.
Because of the massive use of dispersants, we really need submerged monitoring to warn us of the approach of the oil.
