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The tar balls that shut down South Bay beaches last week have returned.
“Yesterday we had a little uptick,” said Petty Officer Michael Anderson of the U.S. Coast Guard, which has continued to monitor the beaches, on Wednesday.
The city of Hermosa Beach sent out a bulletin Tuesday saying that the beach was still open but to stay away from the material and cleanup crews.
Although over 90 percent of the tar that originally washed up onshore exactly a week ago was cleaned up and the beaches were reopened Friday, the Coast Guard remained in the area. It is waiting for the test results of the samples.
“We don’t have confirmation of a source, so we didn’t want to walk away,” said Anderson.
When the tar first washed up on shore on May 27, half of the two-foot water line was covered by tar balls.
Yesterday, the Coast Guard saw two to three percent of the tide line covered in Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Zuma Beach in Malibu. Anderson described this amount as “just a little bit above normal.”
Naturally occurring oil washes up on the beach from time to time. On average, one to two percent of the tide line is covered by it.
The agency is reassessing the status of the oil on the beaches every 72 hours, according to Anderson. The next update will be on Friday morning.
