Massive Pensacola Beach cleanup effort proves futile – Oil buried under inches of sand

By Travis Griggs • tgriggs@pnj.com • June 25, 2010 Despite intensive efforts by more than 1,100 workers and heavy equipment to clean thick tar from Pensacola Beach overnight Wednesday, massive sheets of oil remained buried in the sand. An 8-mile stretch of Pensacola Beach that was covered with gooey oil Wednesday appeared to be clean when the sun came up Thursday. But researchers from the University of South Florida and news reporters discovered that oil is buried from about 1 inch to 8 inches deep. Thursday evening, a News Journal reporter visited the “clean” section of Pensacola Beach near Peg Leg Pete’s off Fort Pickens Road. At a glance, it appeared at least 90 percent of the oil was gone. Scattered tar balls and a few bigger chunks of fresh crude were all that remained on the surface. But when the reporter dug about an inch into the wet sand near the high tide line, his fingers sank into thick sheets of tar. Rip Kirby of USF’s research lab and his partner, associate professor of geology Ping Wang, said tides Wednesday night were responsible for burying the oil. “The oil gets brought in on the incoming tide, it comes in contact with the sand and adheres to it as the tide goes out,” Kirby said. “The tide drags sand from the higher elevation on the beach and buries the oil.” A major concern is that a heavy tide can unearth the hidden oil and redistribute it to the cleaner, higher elevated portions of unaffected beach. …

Oil spill: Beach’s beauty only skin deep