Workers were cleaning up tar balls washing up in Port Aransas this week.
General Land Office (GLO) spokesman Jim Suydam reported tarballs between Mile Markers 52 and 62.
University of Texas Marine Science Institute research fellow Tony Amos said he saw tar balls along the shore area from Beach Access Road 1 to Beach Access Road 2.
Representatives of the Texas General Land Office Oil Spill Prevention and Response Program responded, Suydam said.
On Monday, June 8, the patties were fresh and ranged in size from three to 14 inches in diameter, Suydam said.
They were similar in consistency to tar balls washing up from Port Aransas to Padre Island National Seashore during the week of May 31 to June 6, Suydam said.
A tar “mat” found at Mile Marker 77 was four by six feet in size, he said.
Workers recovered 275 gallons of tar Monday, Suydam said .
The tarballs are being tested in efforts to determine their origin. No results were in yet at press time.
The cleanup is being done by the GLO, Coast Guard and Miller Environmental, a contractor.
Suydam said he hasn’t received reports of wildlife being affected by the tarballs. Amos said he got a report that a laughing gull supposedly was stuck in some of it but that the bird then flew off.
After the workers cleaned up larger pieces of tar on Monday, most spots left on Tuesday were only about the size and shape of a quarter, Amos said.
Few shore birds are on the beach this time of year, so there aren’t many that could be impacted by the tar balls, Amos said.
There still is potential for nesting sea turtles to get in the tar balls, he said. It is possible the tar then could be transferred to eggs. Just a drop of oil on the outside of an egg would be fatal to a sea turtle embryo, he said.
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