Link Between Tanker Spill, Tar Doubted

The Coast Guard said Thursday that thousands of bad-smelling tar balls that washed up along the beach at Camp Pendleton and Oceanside probably didn’t come from the Feb. 7 oil tanker spill off Huntington Beach.

The oily globs were discovered earlier this week, and new deposits were found Thursday in La Jolla and on Coronado’s Silver Strand, according to Lt. Pat Keane of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office in San Diego.

Although samples haven’t been tested yet, Keane said the dark, hard substance found along beaches in San Diego County is different from the tan material that washed ashore in Orange County when 394,000 gallons of oil spilled from the American Trader.

Keane doubted that the tar in San Diego County came from the tanker accident. “It’s unlikely--not impossible--it came from the spill. It doesn’t appear to be the same type of product,” he said.

On Tuesday, lifeguards noticed tar along 3 miles of Oceanside beach, and smaller deposits of tar were scattered on sections of Camp Pendleton’s 17-mile beach.

By Thursday, no more tar had arrived at the Marine Corps base, said Staff Sgt. John Midgette. It was the same in Oceanside, where city spokesman Larry Bauman said crews were operating two cleanup machines to collect the tar.

“We’ve had episodes of tar before, but never of this magnitude,” Bauman said. “Even though it’s not a disaster, it was still considerably heavier than anybody here remembers.”

There have been no reports anywhere of injury to wildlife, and Bauman said, “We do not consider it a health hazard.”

Thursday’s sightings of beach tar, according to Keane, included one chunk at the beach near Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla and “little bits here and there” on the Silver Strand in Coronado.