Page 31 - Tar Balls News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Skimming up what's left as it drifts about in the gulf particularly if more storms come in and mix it up into smaller tar balls that then disperse and the more it disperses the harder it is to find and the harder it is to get resources to clean it up. >> and your work on the exxon valdez revealed that sometimes there is the damage that's obvious that you can see and then the damage that you can't see. explain what you mean. >> well, in the exxon valdez it turned out there was a substantial amount of oil that seeped into beaches and stayed there for quite a long time. in this spill the big wild...

>> reporter: all right. well, tony, right now we are circling around the vessel that rob marciano is riding on. and he is on the command vessel that is commanding all these simmers, so what we're doing up here about 500 feet above the gulf of mexico is looking out for any oil slicks, damaged boons or injured wildlife. fortunately, we haven't seen any of those yet so far. i think the biggest thing that has surprised our crew is that we are seeing people swimming off the beaches of the coast -- gulf of mexico, and there is a warning -- warning them not to enter the water. and in addition to that...

Old-fashioned, i just make a call. i look on search engines and airline websites. and then i call the airlines and find out what are the hidden costs here because sometimes on the website, it's very hard to find some of them. literally, they're buried like on the fifth page of a frequently asked questions second. so i call, i ask about if i change the ticket. >> takes a little bit more research than it should. but that's the best advice. tell me about what you're seeing in terms of travel to the gulf of mexico? some people think the whole place is awash in oil and don't want to go. >> the trut...

Mitch landrieu's bad luck began shortly after his landslide victory for mayor of new orleans in february. there was no honeymoon. the deepwater horizon oil rig exploded in the gulf 13 days before his inauguration. his first official act was to talk to president obama about the catastrophe. mayor landrieu deployed booms and barges to keep the oil out of lake pontchartrain. that worked until last week when the winds from hurricane alex pushed tar balls past the barrier. the city is asking bp for $75 million for a marketing campaign to help lure back tourists, but new orleans was in trouble long ...

That worked until last week when the winds from hurricane alex pushed tar balls past the barrier. the city is asking bp for $75 million for a marketing campaign to help lure back tourists, but new orleans was in trouble long before oil began gushing up from the ocean floor. >> just as dramatic as the consequences of the bp oil spill are and continue to grow, so too are the dramatic consequences of this city's budget deficit. like the spill, it's worse than we thought. >> he entered office with a $67 million budget deficit, almost twice the amount landrieu said he was led to expect by the previ...