Ship hulls, not tides, likely brought tar balls to Texas
By BRETT CLANTON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 6, 2010, 11:48PM
Helping ease fears that a wave of spilled crude is heading this way, Coast Guard investigators said Tuesday they have identified five vessels they believe may have carried tar balls from BP’s gushing oil well off Louisiana to Galveston and other parts of the Texas coast.
The vessels, including three barges and two boats, were part of the armada assisting BP at the well site and are now being inspected to determine whether they were indeed the source, Coast Guard officials said.
While officials have not ruled out the possibility that ocean currents pushed the clumps of crude to the Texas shore, “the weathering of the oil was not consistent with oil that had made the trip of nearly 400 miles,” retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Tuesday at a briefing in Houston.
Coast Guard officials confirmed that tar balls found over the weekend in Crystal Beach and eastern Galveston Island were tied to BP’s Macondo well that blew out April 20, killing 11 crew members on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Some feared the first confirmed reports of oil reaching Texas might represent an advance guard of an oil assault on the Texas coast, which had been spared until now as the worst oil spill in U.S. history tainted shorelines in other Gulf Coast states.
The update Tuesday was a relief, particularly in Galveston, where officials stressed the beaches were open and safe, and the news reinforced predictions that the state likely will not feel the brunt of the spill.
“It’s very possible some more could reach Texas, but you will probably not see any large amounts. I don’t think these pose a major problem at the moment,” said Piers Chapman, head of the oceanography department at Texas A&M University.
‘Tar patties’ being tested
Tar balls came ashore Saturday and Sunday scattered along a mile and a half of beach on eastern Galveston Island and Crystal Beach on the Bolivar Peninsula. Larger “tar patties” found Monday on McFaddin Beach near Port Arthur were still being tested for links to the Gulf spill.
Jim Elliott, commander of the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Unit in Galveston, said officials believe the tar balls reached the Texas coast stuck to a vessel that traversed the spill area, or in its ballast tank.
Ships are supposed to go through a decontamination station before reaching the coastlines, and investigators are trying to determine whether a vessel missed that process, Elliott said.
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson did not rule out the possibility the tar balls may have been swept to the coast by high seas and currents when Hurricane Alex moved through the Gulf last week, but agreed with others that the tar was too lightly weathered to have been carried so far by normal waves and currents.
Tar balls common here
He said investigators estimate the age of the tar by analyzing the ratio of the organic compounds naphthalene and chrysenes, which changes as the oil moves from the wellhead to the surface and then to the coast.
Tar balls aren’t rare on the Texas coast, coming both from existing oil and gas operations offshore and from natural seepage on the ocean floor.
Coast Guard Capt. Marcus Woodring said 18 reports of tar balls on the Texas coast since late April turned out to be unrelated to the BP disaster.