Page 25 - Tar Balls News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Residual oil. that's what they're calling it. this is oil that's on the surface, in the form of sheen. it is in the upper areas of the water in the form of tar balls. it is also ashore in a lot of places. some of this has been cleaned up but some of it is also still in the environment. so we're looking at the potential of possibly a million barrels of oil more or less possibly still out there in the gulf of mexico and they're going to keep an eye on this and keep tracking it and keep doing studies and of course the big question here, wolf, what effect is this going to have on the ecological sy...

Clouds of microscopic droplets beneath the surface. that is in the process of being very rapidly degraded naturally. and so mother nature is assisting here, considerably. so the pieces of the pipe chart that we have looked at directly now account for those things that we can measure directly or have very good estimates for. the residual, which is the upper left part of the pie chart, is 26%. and that's a combination of oil that is in light sheen at the surface, or in tar balls or has been washed asmohore, and much that has been recovered by federal clean-up efforts and state clean-up efforts. ...

So the one piece of the pie that is left after you sum all those others is what we're calling the reset sid you'll and that's a combination of things that we cannot measure directly or estimate with confidence. >> and -- >> just to add to that, to mention this, on the residual, some of this is oil that in tar balls has -- as she said earlier, washed up on the beach. it's been removed, but isn't measurable, because you're removing it -- you may remove this with sand. that's what the 37,000 tons, so some of the 26 is immeasurable or unknown. >> right of. >> also want to point out one thing, and ...

Much and what's buried now in the coastal soils of louisiana, florida, mississippi is tar balls and if you dig down, i wonder if charlotte can confirm this. if you go out to any of the places oiled, don't see any oil on the surface but dig down 10, 12 inches, there's layers of tar balls down there. >> charlotte is with us. are people finding tar balls, charlotte, what's nevil inches do -- what's 12 inches down? >> tar balls were here, too, because you have the natural seepage from the ocean but there are mortar balls certainly since this explosion and, yes, the farther you dig, you're going to...

Underneath. 5,000 feet below. they saw that picture of the oil completely covering up the sugary-white sands of pensacola beach as far as the eye could see. and so, naturally people wanting to take their vacation were thinking, well, we don't want to go down there and swim in waters that has oil. the good news for florida was that most of our beaches did not get hit except with a few tar balls on the northwest coast. the rest of the beaches were fine. but that didn't stop the tourists from canceling their plans. and indeed, that's happened all up and down the gulf coast all the way down to tam...