Crews clean up oil slick in Santa Barbara Channel
Cleanup crews in the Santa Barbara Channel on Monday mopped up an oil slick a mile-and-a-half long and 200 feet wide -- a comparatively small leak from the same drilling platform where a 1969 oil disaster triggered the modern environmental movement.
By day’s end, most of the 1,134 gallons that escaped from Platform A had been skimmed off the sea’s surface into tanks on waiting boats, said Carol Singleton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Fish and Game’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response.
Observers onshore and at the platform six miles off the coast had not sighted any seabirds coated in the goo.
“We’re doing reconnaissance on the beaches, and we’re going to do a flyover,” Singleton said. “We’ve seen no impacts yet -- but that can change.”
Sometimes oiled birds are not spotted until they wash ashore, dead or dying because the oil has ruined their ability to keep warm, Singleton said.
Dos Cuadras Offshore Resources, the company that runs the platform, reported a leak from a finger-sized hole in a pump line about 8 a.m. Sunday.
The company’s initial estimate was 30 gallons but by Monday morning, the leak was recalculated at more than 1,100 gallons, or 27 barrels.
Company officials were unavailable for comment.
No major problems have been reported at any of the company’s nine platforms off the Southern California coast, said John Romero, a spokesman for the Minerals Management Service, which regulates drilling in federal waters.
At Platform A, he said, the last significant incident was the blowout in January 1969, estimated at 80,000 to 100,000 barrels. The resulting slick killed thousands of seabirds, spanned hundreds of square miles and fouled the Santa Barbara coastline.
The backlash against Union Oil Co., then the platform’s owner, spurred creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by President Nixon.
Opponents of expanded offshore drilling were quick to seize on the current incident.
“This spill is another reminder that the calls for increased drilling in our coastal waters are short-sighted and unnecessary,” said Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara). “There is no need for more coastal drilling. We must do everything necessary to prevent a larger catastrophe in the future.”
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