A handful of it feels as slimy as wet macaroni, looks the same shade of brown as dead leaves gone to rot and smells like warm motor oil. This oil has been untouched by the cleanup. The massive effort this summer to remove loose oil from the surface of the beaches was the easy part. It left behind far more than it washed off. But no next step is clear.
Technology offers no practical way to clean down deep without destroying the beach.
Officials are hoping big storms this winter will wash much of the oil back into the ocean, where it can at least be dispersed. Without being removed, the buried oil threatens to bleed out for years, exposing animals that live on the beach to a slow, constant dose of poison. Oil blobs that wash off later could continue to disrupt fisheries. Hidden from the sun and air, oil weathers slowly. It could take years for it to turn hard and settle in place, but that is the best fate possible for some beaches.