La. officials close 12 miles of coastline after Isaac washes up tar balls, oil from BP spill hotspot...
The state is closing a 12-mile section of Gulf coastline from Caminada Pass to Pass Fourchon after Hurricane Isaac washed up large areas of oil and tar balls at the location of one of the worst inundations of BP oil during the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010. Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said agency crews surveying damage from Isaac discovered large sections of viscous oil and tar balls floating along the coast from the beach to one mile offshore between Elmer's Island Wildlife Refuge, just west of Grand Isle, to Pass Fourchon.
"It's a very large mass that is viscous but hasn't coalesced into tar mats yet," Barham said. "But the Elmer's Island beaches are littered with tar balls of every size, from eraser size to the size of baseballs."
Samples will be analyzed by the LDWF and the state Department of Environmental Quality to determine if it originated from the Deepwater Horizon, Barham said.
'Course, most of us expected something along these lines, and we don't know the extent of the problem. And 'course, there's more than the dredged-up oil - the required reports on chemical releases and accidents at refineries and storage facilities are still filtering in.
Apologies for the brief diary, I encourage folks to add info...
Cheers, all.