What's That Black Junk Washing Up On Dauphin Island?

On Saturday, Dauphin Island beachgoers thought their Labor Day Weekend could be ruined when massive amounts of black debris washed up along the coastline. But is the black junk oil?

We contacted BP officials and they invited News 5 to investigate the potential problem. According to company officials, the black debris was not oil, but mud and other biodegradable debris.

"We get calls like this often and we immediately check it out," says Henry Delagarza with BP Mobile Incident Command. "Most of them do not pan out, it's usually debris or something else that's not oil. When it's oil, we attack it right away and clean it right away."

Delagarza says 200 oil clean-up workers are stationed on Dauphin Island to remove any oil or tar balls that wash up. But Delagarza says in this case, the debris that was found was completely safe and non-toxic.