With BP’s new containment equipment in place and further pressure-testing now underway, tar balls discovered on regional beaches are being tested for links to the Deepwater Horizon oil well as cleanup efforts continue.
Coast Guard officials announced Tuesday that tar balls discovered on a beach near Galveston, Texas, west of the underwater leak, were tested and found to be from the Deepwater well, confirming that oil from the disaster had reached Texas shores.
The oil was found on McFaddin Beach near the Bolivar Peninsula, in the upper Texas Gulf region of the state, which borders Louisiana.
With this confirmation, reports have now come in that oil from the BP leak has washed up on the beaches of every Gulf state.
In Florida, local media reported that tar balls discovered along a stretch of Cocoa Beach—near Cape Canaveral on the state’s east coast—had also been tested, and were not from the Deepwater well, according to the Coast Guard.
“We did get confirmation that the tar was from some other source than the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” said Kimberly Prosser, spokeswoman for Brevard County, according to Florida Today. “What that source is, we do not know.”
The majority of oil pollution continues to wash up onto Louisiana’s shores, as a report on cleanup efforts recently released by the U.S. Joint Information Center and BP confirms.
The report claims some 553 miles of Gulf shoreline have already been contaminated by oil, with 313 miles of this damage occurring in Louisiana, followed, respectively, by Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
The report states that 81,000 square miles of Gulf waters—equal to an area the size of Kansas—have been closed to commercial fishing.
The federal-BP report states that cleanup efforts so far have cost BP an estimated $3.5 billion, including response and containment costs, relief-well drilling, and cleanup and compensation claims, among others.
The government began hearings in New Orleans this week as part of a presidential panel tasked with examining the causes of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. The panel will also investigate whether BP was irresponsible in its Gulf operations or took more risks than others in the offshore oil industry.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar also announced earlier this week revised rules for a proposed six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A previous moratorium was overturned last month by a federal judge. The new moratorium rules allow for the conditional resumption of some existing drilling operations.
The oil was found on McFaddin Beach near the Bolivar Peninsula, in the upper Texas Gulf region of the state, which borders Louisiana.
With this confirmation, reports have now come in that oil from the BP leak has washed up on the beaches of every Gulf state.
In Florida, local media reported that tar balls discovered along a stretch of Cocoa Beach—near Cape Canaveral on the state’s east coast—had also been tested, and were not from the Deepwater well, according to the Coast Guard.
“We did get confirmation that the tar was from some other source than the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” said Kimberly Prosser, spokeswoman for Brevard County, according to Florida Today. “What that source is, we do not know.”
The majority of oil pollution continues to wash up onto Louisiana’s shores, as a report on cleanup efforts recently released by the U.S. Joint Information Center and BP confirms.
The report claims some 553 miles of Gulf shoreline have already been contaminated by oil, with 313 miles of this damage occurring in Louisiana, followed, respectively, by Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
The report states that 81,000 square miles of Gulf waters—equal to an area the size of Kansas—have been closed to commercial fishing.
The federal-BP report states that cleanup efforts so far have cost BP an estimated $3.5 billion, including response and containment costs, relief-well drilling, and cleanup and compensation claims, among others.
The government began hearings in New Orleans this week as part of a presidential panel tasked with examining the causes of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. The panel will also investigate whether BP was irresponsible in its Gulf operations or took more risks than others in the offshore oil industry.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar also announced earlier this week revised rules for a proposed six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A previous moratorium was overturned last month by a federal judge. The new moratorium rules allow for the conditional resumption of some existing drilling operations.
