Tar Balls on The Beach
Lisa Jackson who is the head of the Environmental protection Agency has said that the Gulf Coast communities should close down their beaches due to the health hazard indicated by the tar balls appearing on the beaches
I have no scientific credentials but that won’t stop me from giving my own analysis of the safety of swimming in the Gulf. I have spent many years living on the waters edge and have been a keen observer of all kinds of conditions including tar balls on the beach.
I believe that Lisa Jackson is not telling the whole story. I am absolutely convinced that the chemicals used to disperse the oil are more dangerous than the oil.
If you go to the beach and the surf is filled with oil you probably won’t go swimming and don’t need Lisa Jackson to tell you to stay out of the water. The tar balls are messy if you step on them but I don’t believe there is a case of tar ball syndrome recorded in any journal of medicine.
The people on the Gulf have enough economic problems without Lisa giving vague warnings with no detail as to the danger and how to measure and identify it. As a 4 or 5 year old I had considerable tar ball experience
When I was a kid we had a summer home on the beach in South Jersey. In the early 40’s there was great concern about protecting our shore from the enemy. In the first years of the war we were very vulnerable and the war came to the edge of Cape May County. I can remember being awakened by the sound of explosions and looking East from my bedroom window. The sky was lit up with an angry red color that accompanied the noise.
The explosions were cause by German U boats torpedoing freighters that had rounded Cape May Point out of the Delaware Bay heading to New York to join a convoy heading to Europe. Navy planes would be roaring overhead heading out to sea to join the battle. All of this action was taking place just a few miles from my bedroom window that faced the sea. It never made the papers that the war was taking place in the water just off the New Jersey Coast.
The oil from the sunken freighters came ashore with life preservers and flotsam and jetsam associated with the actions. Many days we went to the beach and did not swim because of the oil in the surf. Our parents had common sense and stopped us from swimming in an oil filled surf. The tide and wind invariably took care of the oil and we were in the surf within a few days. The tar balls stayed with us the entire summer. There were always tar balls on the beach and in the surf.
Every home had an outside shower which was used to get rid of the sand after coming home from the beach. During those war years there was always a can of Old Dutch Cleanser or Bon Ami which we sprinkled on the concrete shower base to scrape our feet and get rid of the tar before going into the house.
We had no one spreading chemicals on the oil that was released into our water and nature eventually took care of the oil.
The Gulf oil spill is undeniably a serious situation with environmental and economic consequences. The response of our Federal Administration has been slow and implemented haphazardly. The oil skimmer that they are touting as a major tool in collecting the oil was available 72 days before they approved it’s use. The amount of oil being spilled has been reported in a manner that indicates that an actual accounting is not able to be discerned.
If the condition on the beaches is a health hazard Lisa needs to tell us what the hazard is and where it is located. Is the hazard oil or involving chemicals being used in the clean up? I know it isn’t the tar balls. Dutch Cleanser will take care of that part of the problem
