CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Cleaning up the recent 14,000-gallon light crude oil spill from Corpus Christi Bay is expected to come with a high price tag, said Flint Hills Public Affairs Director Andy Saenz.
"I'm guessing it's over $1 million," he said Tuesday. "These are expensive endeavors but you know what? Whatever it takes, we're going to take care of it."
Flint Hills officials said they are bringing a fixed-wing aircraft to do a flyover of North Beach on Wednesday, and specialized infrared equipment will be used to see whether the spill has been contained and completely cleaned up.
A command station has been set up on North Beach to clean up parts of the spill, which was originally reported to have been 3,800 gallons on Christmas Eve. That number was updated on Friday.
Saenz told 3NEWS that Flint Hills Resources is are starting to find fewer traces of oil during its cleanup efforts.
"What we are picking up today is very, very little," he said. "I mean, it's not like we're sitting there waiting to pick up the phone to find out what's going on. We are out there in the field, but fewer and fewer reports are coming in, and that tells us that we think we have a good handle on it now."
San Antonio native Alex King was visiting North Beach with her family Tuesday. She told 3NEWS she wondered why crews were cleaning along the beach.
"I was confused, because people were coming and cleaning up everything, and we moved out of their way and they said they had been cleaning for five days," she said. "So, it seems pretty clean to us. We haven't seen any sticky stuff or anything since we've been here."
Flint Hills officials told 3NEWS that they now have some 300 workers on the oil-spill cleanup.
A number of local companies are part of that effort.
The U.S. Coast Guard and the state land office are also monitoring the spill and taking water samples.