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Massive amounts of tarballs are now hammering the Atlantic Coast of Florida and have left a large portion of Cocoa Beach in Central Florida literally covered in tarballs.
Mellisa Cones, director of the the Cocoa Beach Chamber of Commerce, attempts to assure the public that the tarballs are not from the BP Gulf Oil Spill by saying “it’s just to thick to be coming from the west coast”.
The chamber says they’re not worried about scaring off sun worshipers.
The tar balls are being cleaned up and people are still enjoying the beach.
Their message is to come on down to the water.
“We’ve got a free beach. We’re the closest beach to Orlando.
It’s gorgeous, the weather is wonderful and we don’t have anything to worry about”, says Mellisa Cones.
Maybe she has been watching to much of the main stream media and just hasn’t seen for herself just how thick the tar balls on Pensacola Beach are.
At least one local resident isn’t buying that explanation and she tells the local news that she hasn’t seen tarballs on the beach in the probably the past 5 years or so.
Yesterday local officials were trying to play the tarballs off as being from a shrimp boat that recently sank.
It would take a very, very large shrimp boat to produce this quantity of tar balls.
Jacksonville’s new 4 has also reported that the Coast Guard has confirmed that tarballs did not come from the shrimp boat and the Coast Guard still “investigating” the source of the tar balls.
…
Beach Patrol said the biggest concentrations are washing up between Minute Man Causeway and Sixth Avenue.People in Brevard County are fearing the worst — that the tar balls came from the Gulf.
“I’m just picking up the pieces and I can’t believe how big they’re coming in, and it’s all over the beach,” a beachgoer said on Tuesday.
Coast Guard members collected samples of the tar balls. Officials said it will take a week for tests to determine if the tar balls are related to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
…
[Coast Guard] Officials have determined the tar balls did not come from a shrimp boat that sank in May.
Of course they didn’t come from a sunken shrimp boat. Just look at the tar balls on the beach.
Here’s a map of Florida with the marker showing the location of Cocoa Beach.
Here are reports from the local news stations in the area.
Channel 4 Jacksonville reportsTar Balls Wash Ashore In Central Fla.
Beach Patrol said the biggest concentrations are washing up between Minute Man Causeway and Sixth Avenue.
People in Brevard County are fearing the worst — that the tar balls came from the Gulf.
“I’m just picking up the pieces and I can’t believe how big they’re coming in, and it’s all over the beach,” a beachgoer said on Tuesday. …
Officials have determined the tar balls did not come from a shrimp boat that sank in May.
Watch the WOFL Fox News Report of on the tar balls washing up on Cocoa Beach, FL
That report ends with the news anchor saying that “the tar balls from the beach are still being tested but their is a very slim chance that they are from the Gulf Oil Spill. The current has not started swirling the oil this way yet.”
WOFL Channel 35 Fox reports on the Tar ball clean up in Cocoa Beach
Clumps of sticky black tar washed up for a second day on Cocoa Beach. …
The Cocoa Beach Area Chamber of Commerce is working to control any damage that may come to businesses in the area. Its a big concern to us, as it impacts our economic engine of tourism, said Melissa Stains, President and CEO of the Chamber. …
Although it’s not yet know where the tar came from, experts believe it’s not likely it came from the gulf. Still, tourism officials will ask the county to move $350,000 from the fourth cent tourist tax to help pay for positive ads about space coast beaches.
WFTV channel 9 has a video showing that a similar coating of tarballs has hit even further north in Brevard County on the Cape Canaveral Beach.
Here are some screen shots from that video.
Update: July 8th, 2010
Caught red-handed this story is being scrubbed.
Yes, I did indeed read that YESTERDAY that there where dozens of tarballs that have been sent for testing which is why I didn’t blog this story then.
What I did read today entirely different and what is that prompted me to publish this story was this story.
The original version read
COCOA BEACH, Fla. — The Brevard County Beach Patrol said a large amount of tar balls are washing ashore in Cocoa Beach. Beach Patrol said the biggest concentrations are washing up between Minute Man Causeway and 6th Avenue.
That was the original story that the press wires.
After it was scrubbed it read like this.
COCOA BEACH, Fla. — The Brevard County Beach Patrol said dozens of tar balls have washed ashore in Cocoa Beach. Beach Patrol said the biggest concentrations are washing up between Minute Man Causeway and 6th Avenue.
Now Just in case you think I am trying to pull a fast one for yourself the description of originally published on this story before being scrubbed by viewing the search results for the Google Query cocoa beach fl “large amount of tar balls are washing ashore”
For example check out the unscrubbed description at Road Runner at http://www.woh.rr.com/news/topicdl/article/dlt/0eYJatJ2M1aAk/05mK5cK8aN1HN/Tar_Balls_Wash_Ashore_In as it exists in the picture below at the time of this update.
Notice you it still contains the original version. But when you follow the link to read Read Full Story link the statement by the Coast Guard about the “large amounts of tar balls” is longer in the text and has been changed to dozens of tarballs.
And that is not a fluke either, there are plenty of news sources showing that exact opening line of the original article before it was scrubbed.
Let’s take for example the Yahoo result in the Google Results which read as follows before being scrubbed.
The top local news headlines from Yahoo! News – Yahoo! News
Tar Balls Wash Ashore In Central Fla. 2 hrs 56 mins ago. The Brevard County Beach Patrol said a large amount of tar balls are washing ashore in Cocoa Beach. …
news.yahoo.com/local-news/24701088/+Florida
That result shows us the exact text text from the Yahoo News page as it actually existed 2 hrs 56 mins and ago when it was indexed by Google..
But on the Yahoo News Page the story has been scrubbed.
In fact if you can even inspect the Google Cache of the Yahoo News page and Google gives you get a nice warning that the phrase is no longer on the page.
Let’s repeat the example again for the Topix result as it appears Google’s search cache.
Cocoa Beach Newswire – Topix
The Brevard County Beach Patrol said a large amount of tar balls are washing ashore in Cocoa Beach. Comment? Related Topix: Brevard County, FL …
www.topix.com/wire/city/cocoa–beach–fl
But once the story has been was updated with a scrubbed version it no longer contains that text.
Again the Google Cache for the Topix shows how the has been scrubbed and the page gives a nice warning that the text is no longer on the page.
.
Now if you don’t understand how this works its is not like some one has gone to all of the sites on the internet and scrubbed the original article on each of their websites.
What has happened is the original news article was scrubbed and the original opening sentence “The Brevard County Beach Patrol said a large amount of tar balls are washing ashore in Cocoa Beach” was deleted from the article.
That sentence is still in the Google Search results cache as well as the cached results of some other websites cache including the Road Runner News page.
But other sites such as the Topix link and the Yahoo News have already updated their cache with the new “scrubbed version”.
OK, so the story was changed maybe the article had a misprint.
Highly unlikely. Why because there where widespread reports of dozens of tar balls yesterday and that was before it spread north to the Cape Canaveral Beach.
It just doesn’t make sense that there where dozens yesterday and there where wide spread reports of “large amounts of tar balls” today on Cocoa beach and then you add the additional tar balls found on Cape Canaveral beach and you are still left with the original amount of dozens.
Update July 10th
Here’s another article found on Fox News Orlando showing this was more than just a few dozen tar balls.
COCOA BEACH, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) – With big black oily tar balls floating off shore and washing up on Cocoa Beach this afternoon, a similar prayer is echoing up and down the seaside town. “I’m praying they’re not from the Gulf,” said Chrissy Palmer, a bartender at Beach Shack in Cocoa Beach. “Its probably going to affect business, tourism.”
The U.S. Coast Guard will now test the tar to see if it’s actually from the BP oil spill in the Gulf. It should take a couple days to get those results.
Members of the Coast Guard spent the afternoon picking up tar ball after tar ball. Some the size of a quarter, others up to five inches wide spanned a two mile strech between Lori Wilson Park and 6th Street South. Right now its unclear if these gooey black blobs were carried by the current from disaster in the Gulf or if they came from a tanker or large ship off shore.
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