Page 17 - Tar Balls News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> these guys are actually just kind of like a fishing crew here. >> it's been almost eight months since bp oil blackened the beaches of mississippi's barrier islands and i find that the oil is still here. >> it's brittle. >> uh-huh. >> not at all like we saw last summer. look at it. it crumbles like a cookie, almost. >> cleaning up this wildlife refuge on horn island is slow. machines can't dig deep enough to reach the buried oil without causing more environmental damage. so every day teams sift through the sensitive dunes and beaches for tar balls. and every day, the wind and waves uncover m...

Government-set standard of less than 1% visible coverage. >> within that section, within that entire section of boo beach there has to be less than 1% coverage. >> out of every 1,000 feet of beach you can still have ten feet of oil? >> over that entire 1,000 feet, yes. >> that sounds like a lot to me. >> well it's a standard that was determined. >> following another government standard, crews are only collecting the tar balls that are larger than two and a half centimeters. about the size of a quarter. >> and now, the clock is ticking. because the all-important nesting season begins in march. ...

About the escalating unrest in libya. the securities council is considering new sanctions against libya's moammar gadhafi. among the items in a new draft resolution, an arms embargo, freezing of gadhafi's assets, and a travel ban. libya's regime could also face charges from an international criminal court. and the death toll from this week's devastating earthquake in new zealand is climbing. at least 145 people are now confirmed dead. more than 200 others are still missing. hope is fading that more survivors will be found. and we're getting new images of the fissures and the cracks in the ea...

November 2009 killings at ft. hood will be released about noon. that report is expected to detail failures by the u.s. government that led to the shooting that killed 13 people and injured 32 others. the fbi expected to release a response as well. waters in the gulf of mexico will be reopened to shrimpers. the area is off louisiana, in is miss and alabama. it was closed last year as a precautionary measure after a commercial shrimper found tar balls. there is a public hearing to decide what impact opening a walmart would have. walmart officials have declined to attend today's hearing. we...

Usual in determining what caused the big league to big blast that caused 11 men and unleashed more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the gulf. we're told justice department officials will be on site to preserve the blow out preventer for the investigation. in the meantime, the government has reopened more than 4,000 square miles of federal waters off of louisiana's west coast for commercial and recreation fishing. officials say there is no evidence of oil or dispersants. 20% of the federal waters in the gulf remain closed. a teenager in alabama is returning some of the left over oil f...