BP Oil Hits The Texas Coast

Well it had to happen sooner or later. The oil from BP's Gulf oil disaster has been affecting the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida for weeks now, but Texas had been spared. No longer. On Saturday and again on Sunday tar balls were found washed up on the beach at Galveston, Texas.

After investigating those tar balls both the Coast Guard and Texas officials now admit they are from the oil released by the BP well that is gushing oil into the Gulf. Texas beaches are about 400 miles from the BP well that exploded so it took a little longer for the oil to start arriving here, but the wait is over.

Texas officials had hoped the oil would not come here. In fact, many were crowing that Texas would benefit from the disaster because people who could not go to beaches in other Gulf states would bring their vacation to Texas instead. Looks like they spoke too soon. Although most Texas beaches are still clean, as the oil disaster continues unabated, more and more oil will start to show up on all of them.

Some officials are still in denial. They are saying the oil could have come off a ship from the oil disaster zone. If so, then those ships are not obeying the regulations which say a ship must be decontaminated before entering the port. It is more likely that the oil spilling from the BP well is just finally starting to arrive on Texas beaches.

It now looks like none of the Gulf states are going to be able to avoid being affected by the oil disaster.