MELBOURNE BEACH, Fla. – Mitch Roffer picked up tiny scattered tar balls of unknown origin from near his Melbourne Beach home and from Playalinda Beach this week.
They were very few and far between, but he's gathering the tar samples, just in case things gets worse and if the oil's origin need be known, according to News 6 partner Florida Today.
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"I saw some indication of oil tracks on the dune crossover," Roffer, a marine biologist, said Wednesday from Playalinda Beach. "I've been living in Melbourne for 15 years ...and I haven't seen much oil over the years."
He began finding tar balls earlier this week near his Melbourne Beach home. The tar balls he's seeing range from 1 to 3 inches wide, Roffer said. He found three small oil pieces Wednesday within 300 yards at beach Lot No. 1 at Playalinda, and 15 pieces of tar at Lot No. 5.
Roffer said he's contacted U.S. Coast Guard officials to make them aware, but he doesn't think the situation yet merits a formal response from the federal agency.
While it's often difficult to pinpoint an exact cause, an offshore oil spill or natural upwelling are thought to be typical causes of the tar on the beach. The larger chunks could be a result of the manner in which the oil clumped together after the spill or upwelling. If the oil seeped up from the ocean floor, winds can blow it in from afar, not necessarily from a natural seep nearby.
Ships burn fuel oil that's difficult to distinguish from the crude that flows up naturally from the ocean floor. They sometimes release oil as they take on and release ocean water from ballast tanks to balance the ship at sea. Typically, vessels take on ballast water after delivering cargo and departing with less or no cargo.
Roffer suspects ballast water might be the source of what he's finding on the beaches this week, possibly the remnants of Hurricane Dorian.
"It could be from ship's bilge water," Roffer said. "It could be from people's bilges locally, or it could be from the Bahamas."
By federal and international law, ships are supposed to filter the oil from the ballast water before discharging at sea. The extracted oil is then reused, incinerated or off-loaded at port.
In 2015, pancake-sized tar "patties" dotted several blocks of Cocoa Beach, sticking to toes and blemishing the Space Coast's most popular tourist beach. U.S. Coast Guard officials oversaw cleanup of that tar.