What happened to the magic microbes?

Title: La. tests confirm oil exposed by Hurricane Isaac came from BP spill
Source: AP
Date: September 6, 2012 at 3:22p ET
Emphasis Added

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Ed Overton, the LSU chemist who did the state tests, said the oil found on Elmer’s Island had not degraded much while oil at Grand Isle had.

[...]

Still, he said more oil was likely buried in other places along the coast, perhaps as deep as 3 feet. He said the difficulty for cleanup crews has been finding and removing buried oil.

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The tar balls are “clean,” [Researcher Joel Hayworth] said, virtually identical in size and shape to ones found in 2010 and fragile enough that they fall apart when handled. That indicates material on the bottom of the coast isn’t moving much and is very near the surf line, Hayworth said.

“They are resident tar balls that got redistributed by Isaac,” Hayworth said.

Relatively pristine tar balls have washed ashore with each tropical system that has hit the Alabama coast since the spill, Hayworth said, indicating the material isn’t going anywhere.

“We’re in year three and this seems to be the new normal for the Gulf Coast,” said Hayworth. “For some unforeseeable time, this is going to be the new normal for the beach.”

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Title: Storm scatters tar balls buried since BP spill
Source: Houma Today
Author: Nikki Buskey
Date:  September 5, 2012 at 6:01 a.m.

[...]

[Garret Graves, state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority chairman] said he hopes this uncovered oil will convince the Coast Guard, which oversees oil-spill response, that long-term monitoring and response is needed in Louisiana.

“You can sit here and wait and respond to re-oiling like this every time, and we’ll be doing this for 20 years,” Graves said. “Or we can proactively put a monitoring team together and find the oil that’s still out there.”

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