Read the original at The Examiner

tar ball
© Betty Doud, July 30, 2011Huge tar chunk found by Betty Doud at Grand Isle. Some chunks were bigger than her foot.
Betty Doud, a painter who lives in one of the hardest-hit areas from the BP oil spill, spoke again to Examiner this week. She had posted a video on Facebook that showed some horrifically large tar "balls" that had washed up on the beach. These weren't balls - they were huge chunks, like dried petroleum bowling balls.

Examiner asked Betty if she'd respond to some questions. She ended up writing a thorough report of what she observed over just the past few days. Here's what she had to say (this has only been lightly edited for clarity):
My last walk on the beach was 7-30-2011. All along the beach there was fresh tar that had washed up during the night. The day before, 7-29, the whole beach was covered with the brown foam we were seeing all winter long. This was the first time I had seen that much since February, 2011. So, seeing the foam on the 29th I knew something was up -- they were trying to hide something again.

So I was not surprised to find the tar and some small sections of oil on 7-30. I aslo found a dead adult dolphin on 7-30. It had been there awhile -- half rotted. Birds had not touched it either.

Before the spill I had never seen anything like these tar chunks. Once in a while I'd notice a tar ball or two, but it's been like that on every beach I've ever lived on, that's normal. Oil will exude from the ocean floor. I hadn't seen this kind of tar since the spill was cleaned up here. I still see a lot of tar balls but nothing like this. These where HUGE tar chunks -- raw, fresh.

People do not understand that this is nowhere near over. There is still oil out in the Gulf in hugh plumes, also some sunk to the gulf floor creating a tar mat. The center of the mat is still soft tar also. I know his because I see it all the time on the beach. One side raw; the other hard.

I walk the beach all the time; that's why I moved here -- to be on the beach. In the last year I've seen every type of fish wash up dead. From the small shoreline fish to the large deepwater fish and ALL of them have their intestines hanging out their butts. Even birds I've found in the same condition. hey also have strange- looking sores on them, but the strangest thing about all the dead sea life is none of the birds are eating any of the dead fish that are on the beach. Before there would be flocks of birds feeding on anything dead... not any more, they don't touch them.

BP has left the island; there's no one here to clean anything up anymore. I think BP and our government are covering this all up. Media won't come near us -- they're told there is no story here. But who owns the media? Corporations connected to Big Oil, etc.

If BP and the government admit there is a problem now, then they'll have to admit to all the lies they have been telling all along about the spill.The oil is still here. It is not over. It has to be researched, investigated, [to] find out what is happening to all the sealife so we'll be able to protect the people from the same fate.

Dolphins are the closest thing to humans in the water. Our government has confiscated all dolphin cacrassess from all scientists across the gulf, because of a lawsuit.They seem to not worry at all about the health of the USA people. I feel we need to find out now what happened to the dolphins, then save the people.