A milestone of sorts in the BP oil spill story, as reported by the AP:

More than two months after oil from BP’s blown-out seafloor well first reached Louisiana, a bucket’s worth of tar balls that washed onto a Texas beach means the crude has arrived in every Gulf state.

(Or, as some out-of-state publication or another was bound to put it: “Oil Spill Officially Messes with Texas…” )

And, a couple of local takes:




But tar balls on the beach isn’t the only way the BP spill is touching Texas. From the Houston Chronicle:

Some of BP’s spilled oil and other waste is making its way to the state for permanent disposal in underground salt domes and injection wells. Texas, home to large numbers of environmental services companies, refineries and oil salvage operators, is among the states recycling or disposing of oily refuse collected during cleanup efforts, according to state officials and BP documents.


But what kind of waste is coming in, how it is being processed and the details of its disposal are something of a mystery. BP and most of its contractors are unwilling or unable to disclose details, and government agencies offer competing or incomplete accounts of what’s going where.

Here’s hoping the Chronicle (and others) stay with this question of what’s going where.

Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.