GULF SHORES, Ala. –  Officials who first feared oil and tar ball monitoring by BP would cease after beach renourishment efforts begin this month are resting easier now.

An initial thought was the new sand would be covering up the source of the tar balls.

Hurricane Isaac helped change that notion.

In the aftermath of Isaac, 37,000 pounds of tar balls were picked up from Alabama beaches, Orange Beach Coastal Resources Director Phillip West said. West said there were noticeable increases in the tar amounts in the wake of the storm.

“Areas that you might be collecting one and a half, two pounds of tar over the course of the week of cleanup, you might be getting 30 pounds,” he said. “We found many, many times what was going on before Isaac. It disturbed the bottom and broke up some probably hidden tar mats.”

The same was scene was repeated in Gulf Shores as well.

“With Hurricane Isaac coming through and breaking up chunks of tar that clearly weren’t the typical tar balls,” Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft said. “They weren’t uncovering them. They initially thought the rough surf was uncovering tar at the shore’s edge which really is not the case.

“The bigger problem is it’s breaking up tar offshore and ending up on the beach.  The concern that we all shared with that new sand that the offshore stuff would be coming in and contaminating new sand.”

West said the oil and tar collections were waning before the surf was churned up by Isaac.

“You have these stretches you can count on getting tar on regularly,” West said. “Even those hot-spot stretches, before the storms, were really tapering off and it was getting harder and harder to find the tar. It was becoming much more infrequent and much lighter.

“When Isaac hit, boom, those numbers jump up dramatically.”

During the renourishment, crews will not be working on the beaches and officials in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores were concerned they wouldn’t be brought back.

“Once this renourishment project begins, they’re going to suspend operations, get our sand put back on the beach and then after this project is complete they’ll come back in and start monitoring and again start picking up any new oil that’s washed up,” Gulf Shores Environmental and Building Official Brandan Franklin said. “This was a huge plus for us because typically during the situation when we’re doing a renourishment project they end the response part of it.”

Craft said Capt. Duke Walker of the Coast Guard, the federal on the scene coordinator overseeing the cleanup operations, was thinking BP could cease operations after the new sand project was completed.

“But basically after Isaac and the tar that we found on shore rather than the tar balls, he reacted appropriately and said we are not going to leave clean sand with the threat of that coming in,” Craft said. “He said we’ll stay on it and monitor it and respond as necessary.”

West, who has been in the water monitoring the offshore environment, says the added beaches won’t reach areas that are suspected to be harboring tar mats.

“Having even gone out and snorkeled in those areas I can tell you the source of that material is beyond the limits where we’re going to be adding beach,” he said. “And probably beyond the limit of where snorkel scat even looks for tar mats.

“Thankfully, in the Captain’s mind, we may not know full well where material is originating from and the beach project is probably not going to do away with our problem.”

Even if some of the added beach did cover up oil and tar, West says typical erosion that happens naturally would eventually expose it again. Storms multiply this effect.

“Even if you added 100 feet of beach, the problem is you’ll probably see half of what you put out there leave relatively quickly, within a few months,” he said. “So even if you did cover up some material there’ll be a point where it’s uncovered again. And so there’s going to be a need for maintenance and monitoring crews to return to work.”

West says he believes the oil and tar problem is not going to go away soon.

“It may be next week, it may be next month or it may be next year,” he said. “I’m just convinced we’re going to be dealing with this for a long, long time.”