Tar balls in Florida not from oil spill

NEW ORLEANS, May 19 (UPI) -- Tar balls that washed ashore in the Florida Keys were not from the oil leak spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, officials said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, heavy oil from the spill in the gulf reached the Louisiana marshland as BP worked to drain off oil gushing from the well on the sea floor.

The tar balls -- ranging in size from 3 inches to 8 inches in diameter -- were found Monday and Tuesday at Zachary Taylor Park in Key West and sent to a laboratory in Connecticut for analysis.

The U.S. Coast Guard said tests "conclusively show" that a sampling of the tar balls doesn't match the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill, The Miami Herald reported. Their origin, however, remains unknown.

"Certainly at this point in time, it's a relief to know the oil from the leak has not reached the Keys," said Becky Herrin, a spokeswoman for the Monroe County, Fla., Sheriff's Office. "You have to keep in mind we're still preparing for the possibility and keeping a close eye."

Officials noted that new computer modeling predicted oil from the sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig would reach the Florida peninsula next week. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil have been spilling into the gulf since the rig exploded April 22 and sank, killing 11 workers.

In southern Louisiana, thick, brown oil was nibbling at the edges of the marshes, local officials said.

"If I had been standing up, I would have fell to my knees," Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, La., told The Washington Post about learning of the news. "It's our greatest fear."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had predicted the goo might reach landfall in the marshes.

"This is the first time we've seen this much heavy oil this far into our wetlands," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said during a news conference. "We know there's a lot more heavy oil behind it that hasn't made it to shore yet."

Also Tuesday, BP officials said the company was increasing the amount of oil being siphoned from the leaking well, saying it was removing 2,000 barrels of oil a day from the leak, up from 1,000.

As BP works to try to abate the flow of oil, scientists in Florida are working to get answers to basic questions about the spill, including quantifying the amount of oil floating to the surface and how much lies beneath, The Miami Herald reported Wednesday. Without answers, scientists say they can only speculate.

"We just don't have enough information to make very wise guesses about what's going to happen," said Richard Dodge, dean of Nova Southeastern's Oceanographic Center and head of the National Coral Reef Institute.