The U.S. Coast Guard launched an investigation into the appearance of tar balls on South Florida beaches over the weekend. Despite extensive searches by air and sea, the source of the black muck remains a mystery. The tar balls, small and sticky pieces of oil, have been reported from Port Everglades to Palm Beach. While some beaches temporarily closed due to the tar balls, they have since reopened.
The U.S. Coast Guard has been searching for tar balls that began showing up on South Florida beaches over the weekend, but so far the source of the black muck remains a mystery. The agency has been investigating reports of tar balls from Port Everglades to Palm Beach along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, the Coast Guard said in a statement. Some beaches in South Florida closed on Saturday when tar balls washed ashore, but they’ve since reopened.
Tar balls are small, dark pieces of oil that can stick to the feet of beachgoers, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They often come from oil spills, but the source can also be “natural seeps” in which oil slowly escapes from petroleum reserves beneath the ocean floor, according to NOAA. That was a possible source of tar balls that appeared on the Gulf Coast in 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. While some tar balls may be as large as pancakes, most are coin-sized, the agency says in a fact sheet. “Tar balls are very persistent in the marine environment and can travel hundreds of miles.” For most people, occasional brief contact with a small amount of oil isn’t harmful, officials said. But for people who are particularly sensitive to chemicals, tar balls can cause rashes or allergic reactions. Coast Guard crews conducted searches by air and by sea, but they were unable to find a specific source, Coast Guard Petty Officer Nicholas Strasburg said Wednesday. Though the agency is no longer investigating the source of the tar balls, it is working with local communities in case they have any further concerns, he said. There’s been no evidence that the tar balls came from Port Everglades off the shore of Fort Lauderdale, but giant tanker ships routinely sit near the port. Every day, more than 12.5 million gallons (47.3 million liters) of products including gasoline and jet fuel move through the port on tanker ships and barges, and there are many petroleum terminals in the area, according to the port.In October, the Canadian Coast Guard cleaned up tar balls floating to the ocean’s surface from the site of a World War II era shipwreck off the coast of British Columbia, the Canadian Broadcasting Co. reported. The U.S. Army military transport ship has been leaking oil over the years since it hit a rock and sunk in 1946, the news outlet reported. In Delaware and Maryland. In May 2019, tar balls described as “very soft” washed up on beaches on Padre Island in Texas and were getting stuck on beachgoers, the Padre Island National Seashore reported at the time.
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