1 Month After Oil Spill, Tar Balls Arrive on Florida's Mainland

[salazarmms]

Source: YouTube

...

The tar balls range in size from 3 inches up to 7 inches and were among more than 50 others found recently along this protected beach.

A Local Marine Biologist at the Florida Oceanographic Center in Stuart it is rare for tar balls to come ashore around this area.

The beach is a designated wildlife refuge, home to rare nesting birds and turtles.

A spokeswoman for the Coast Guards Miami office said, "We don't know why they are showing up."


Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCquu0QsSGA

---

I thought people would get them stuck on their toes and feet but this looks big enough to wear as a shoe.

[Statistical]

1. "A spokeswoman for the Coast Guards Miami office said, "We don't know why they are showing up."

REALLY?

I mean WTF Coast Guard you can't figure out why they are showing up?

Then resign.

[JuniperLea]

3. I read a report yesterday...

They said the tar balls weren't from the gulf "spill" and they weren't the same kind of oil. I call bullshit. There needs to be a lot of resignations. Not that it matters... I'm thinking we're fairly screwed here.

[amerfayed]

4. total bs

the loop current travels at 4 mph, that is about 100 miles a day. it's been thirty days so that is 3000 miles it has floated in the current more than enough considering it is less than 1000 from new orleans to miami even if you don't travel in a straight line.

[HooptieWagon]

7. Loop Current is 1-2 knots

The Gulf Stream can flow up to 4 knots for a brief stretch. All figures are in the center of the currents, along the edges would be much less. While it's conceivable the tar balls are from the DH spill, IMO it's unlikely... especially since there have been no tar balls reported in the stretch of GS from Miami to Palm Beach where it's closest to shore. There is MUCH shipping traffic in the Florida Straights and East Coast, the tar balls most likely came from some passing ship.

[salazarmms]

10. your scenario would be "usual" the biologist said it was "unusual"

"There is MUCH shipping traffic in the Florida Straights and East Coast, the tar balls most likely came from some passing ship."

If that is the case, why does the marine biologist say this is "Unusual"? If it's most likely the 7 inch tarballs came from a passing ship, where have the tar balls been before? Why is this unusual to him if 7 inch tar balls are a likely occurrence on these sea turtle nests?

[HooptieWagon]

11. not every ship pumps their bilge when passing Florida, ocassionally one does.

[salazarmms]

14. So all these places in S. Florida that rarely get tar balls are getting them now...

...Stuart...

Vero Beach:
Saturday, a Vero Beach man and his wife discovered dozens of "tar pancakes" on the sand and in the water.
Michael and Jenny Risley said they made the discovery during their usual Saturday walk from Jaycee Beach to Humiston Beach.
He was concerned enough to bring the tar samples to a lifeguard at Jaycee Beach.
"They said they had been lifeguarding for 8 years and they had never seen anything like this on the beach before," said Risley.
http://www.wptv.com/content/news/indianriver/story/vero-beach-tar-balls-oil-on-beach-gulf-oil-spill-d/N4Qo4Ah5c0WeEOfokFlvUA.cspx

Keys, Key West to Marathon:
Coast Guard Captain Patrick DeQuattro, at Coast Guard Station Key West, said the tar balls they found "range from the Dry Tortugas to 70 miles west to Key West to roughly the Marathon area, Bahia Honda State Park. Exposure to that type tar balls across approximately a hundred miles of the Florida Keys is unusual. I've been here a year. I've not had that type of exposure yet."
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Gov-Crist-Be-patient-and-cautious-as-tar-balls-found-throughout-lower-Keys-94220664.html

[HooptieWagon]

21. The tar balls in Key West yesterday weren't from the spill.

It's possible tar balls in the Dry Tortugas are from the spill, the Tortugas are a ways away from the loop current, but the Tortugas eddy could have carried them there. Will have to wait and see the report. I doubt that tar balls from the spill could have been carried all the way up to Stuart at this time, but it's possible. Strange that none would have shown up in Miami or Ft Lauderdale prior, though. Again, will have to wait for the analysis. I've sailed these waters a lot, I know the surface currents around Florida. I wouldn't expect shit to show up in Stuart that hadn't previously washed up on beaches south, given north flowing current and prevailing easterly winds.

[salazarmms]

16. especially since there have been no tar balls reported in the stretch of GS from Miami to Palm Beach

Perhaps you should check out this article from the palm beach post

"In one experiment, a buoy dropped in the Gulf made its way via the Loop to the St. Lucie Inlet, recalled George Maul, the head of the Department of Marine Environmental Systems at the Florida Institute of Technology."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/scientists-oil-slick-almost-certain-to-ride-current-665681.html?sort=desc

That is exactly where the tar balls were found... the St. Lucie Inlet. and those tar balls float and bob and the surface much like a buoy.

[salazarmms]

18. Between 1.15 and 2.3 mph... really?

Let's use a something published before the disaster since it is not biased by this disaster

Article:
Hindcast of Waves and Currents in Hurricane Katrina

Publication:
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 2008

Excerpt:
"The Princeton Regional Ocean Forecast System (PROFS) for the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico http://www.aos.princeton.edu/WWWPUBLIC/PROFS/) is used to simulate the Loop Current, Loop Current Eddy and upper ocean wind-driven response. The PROFS is based on the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) (Mellor 2004). The model domain includes the
entire North Atlantic Ocean west of 55oW. The model horizontal grid-size is variable; it averages about 10 km in the Loop Current and the northwestern Caribbean Sea, and about 5 km in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico (not shown; see Oey and Lee, 2002).."
---------------------------

10 km per hour is 6.25 miles per hour

Recent newspaper estimates have it between 2 and 6 mph.

4 mph should be safe.



Article here:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ao2SQjcGkSrEJ%3Awww.aos.princeton.edu%2FWWWPUBLIC%2FPROFS%2FPUBLICATION%2Fwang_oey_katrina_waves_currents_bams.pdf+loop+current+mph&hl=en&gl=us

[HooptieWagon]

19. I have done A LOT of sailing in the Gulf...

... between Florida and Mexico. The Yucatan Current, between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula flows at a max rate of about 4 knots. The current is squeezed through a relatively narrow gap there. The Loop Current, when it exists (it doesn't always), flows at a max of about 2 knots, usually a bit less. If it was flowing at 6.25 mph, as you claim, a sailboat would come to a standstill. I have never seen anything even remotely close to what you claim.

[HooptieWagon]

20. delete- dupe

[louis-t]

2. BP says "It's not us."

Maybe the manatee are throwing the balls ashore.
Spelling.

[paparush]

5. BP - Blameless Personhood

[kdmorris]

6. Damn, that's in Stuart - on the ATLANTIC coast

If you look at Lake Okeechobee and go directly from the north coast of Lake Okeechobee to the Atlantic Coast, there is Stuart.

If those tar balls are washing on shore because of the oil spill, then we are seriously more screwed then it would seem. That means it's gone around the tip of Florida and about 266 more miles north from Key West, FL. Stuart is near to where they were taking all the Brown Pelicans to get them away from the Gulf Coast.

[phantom power]

8. Seems to me like quite a coincidence, if they *aren't* from the DH gusher.

I mean, do tarballs regularly show up on beaches in the gulf? Where else would tarballs come from?

:shrug:

[kdmorris]

9. That beach is not in the Gulf

but no, they don't regularly show up here. It's pretty scary for me, not just because it's the beach is on the Atlantic, but because of how far North on the Atlantic side of Florida it it (40 miles north of me).

[phantom power]

12. oops, right. other side of florida.

:dunce:

Still seems like a heck of a coincidence.

[kdmorris]

15. Yeah, it does

Going to the beach tomorrow while we still can. If the oil slick does make it this far, they will close the beach.

[Kingofalldems]

13. Yeah but Rush says the ocean will clean itself out

So there's really nothing to worry about.

[BlueKitteh]

17. Would You happen to know

The diameter of this pipe?