Titan Salvage reported oil residue in the surf and at the beach at the New Carissa this morning.

A Titan Salvage spokesman called The World about 10:25 a.m. to report an incident.

“We’ve got a spill out here at the New Carissa,” he said, offering no other details.

Rough seas and Titan’s effort to pull up the stern released some residual tar balls out of the shipwreck, according to Titan Managing Director David Parrot.

The material is not in liquid from, but a hard combination of tar and sand, he said.

The balls vary in size from one quarter-inch to 6 inches in size. About 150 yards of the beach has been affected so far. Titan called out the Coos Bay Oil Spill Response Cooperative around 8:30 a.m. The six-member team will collect the tar balls as they wash ashore today and through the weekend.

By 12:30 p.m., the release of tar bits seemed to have subsided.

An NRC Environmental Services team is on the way from Portland to replace the local team later today, according to Holly Tavernier, the Coos Bay response team administrative coordinator.

The balls, that look more like tiny pancakes, are giving off a slight sheen, but not enough oil to be sucked up by booms. And that's a good thing, since the oil spill responders can't deploy booms in the rough sea.

"It's washing up on the beach. It's very tedious work to walk around to pick them up," Tavernier said.

Parrot said he expects more to wash up as the bad weather persists. The team will be on an around-the-clock watch and collection effort.

“We are treating it seriously,” he said.