I went with my family on 7/6/2010 to the Galveston STate Park on the western end of the island. There was a lot of seaweed - almost a foot high along the whole beach, and you had to walk through it and over it to get to the water. Well, the seaweed was black and coated in a watery black substance, with some of the underlying seaweed only brown or green. The seaweed was clumped. When you get past the seaweed, the water has a dark black liquid in it that washed up and hits your ankle. Unlike the beach I remember growing up. You can't see through the water at all. It also STINKS like sewage.

Now, I don't know if its oil or just sewage and a toxic soup. But this is not the Galveston I remember from the 80s and early 90s. This is sick. I was very sad. My kids could not build sandcastles with the water because they couldn't even walk past the seaweed - they got black film on their feet and it stank.

The gulls and pelicans diving for fish also had a dark brownish look to them - the wet ones that is. In other words, the water was not black and sticky, but just black and watery. So nothing "stuck" per se. But it was smelly and gross. So if it is oil, it is very thin and diluted. But it may just be sewage and toxic soup. The entire area is polluted now due to the refining industry and the increased urbanization of the whole area.