Last 2 1/2-Mile Stretch of Beach Is Reopened

The final stretch of Huntington Beach shoreline fouled by the American Trader oil spill was reopened Wednesday, five weeks after the tanker spewed 394,000 gallons of Alaskan crude offshore, causing Orange County’s worst environmental disaster.

A 2 1/2-mile stretch of sand from Golden West Street to lifeguard headquarters at Bolsa ChicaState Beach was declared safe and open to the public, marking the end of a cleanup operation that has cost nearly $20 million so far.

The spill from the 811-foot tanker also killed more than 720 birds and cost seaside businesses, particularly charter boat operators trapped in harbors that were sealed off for weeks, thousands of dollars in revenues.

And as network television showed the waves of gooey black sludge washing up on some of California’s most renowned beaches, the spill illustrated once again the nation’s critical dependency on petroleum and the risks that exist in importing it.

In two weeks, U.S. Coast Guard officials are expected to issue a preliminary report on their ongoing investigation of the spill. The ship ran over its anchor and punched two holes in its hull while attempting to moor shortly after a record low tide at an offshore pipeline terminal.

But Wednesday was a day for reflection, and bidding the cleanup operation goodby.

“We can close the books on this chapter,” Huntington Beach Lifeguard Capt. Bill Richardson said. “All beaches are open--and they look great. Now, maybe we can think--and talk--about something other than oil.”

At the height of the cleanup, nearly 1,500 workers were stationed along 20 miles of shoreline raking, mopping and vacuuming up the noxious oil. By Wednesday, however, only 30 workers remained, dispatched to walk various beaches to look for any residue or errant tar balls. The cleanup effort--once resembling a small army of yellow-slickered workers and heavy machinery--was quickly winding down.

Even as Huntington Beach Mayor Thomas J. Mays declared at an afternoon press conference that “we’re back in business,” British Petroleum was sending its sizable team of spill coordinators, financial auditors and biologists home to headquarters in Cleveland. British Petroleum owned the oil that spilled from the American Tanker.

“It’s done, and we’re ready to go home,” company spokesman Chuck Webster said. A Southern California firm, ASI Inc., has been hired by British Petroleum to monitor beaches in the coming weeks for new oil and any that might have been missed. “We will continue to be responsive to any problems,” Webster added, “but we don’t believe there will be any.”

He predicted that the cleanup “will go down in the books as one of the most successful in U.S. history,” largely because of what he said was “a close, cooperative relationship” between company officials and government leaders. “Because of that cooperation, many of those first decisions were the right ones,” Webster said.

Health tests along the final, 2,000-yard stretch of beach that was reopened Wednesday revealed that petroleum hydrocarbon counts averaged 11 parts per million, Webster said. Experts consider counts above 100 parts per million to be unsafe.

In many places, the beaches have been so thoroughly cleaned that they little resembled the summer playground for hundreds of thousands of sunbathers.

“I’d say they did a good job of cleaning it up,” Buena Park resident Debbie Wood said as she surveyed the strand just south of the Huntington Beach Municipal Pier. Nearby, her two daughters, Debrina, 6, and Aubrianna, 2, played in the sand. It was the family’s first trip to the beach since moving from Des Moines, Iowa.

“I’m surprised. I don’t see (any oil),” she remarked. “I don’t even smell anything wrong.”

At worst, health officials suggest, individuals who come in contact with any oil residue might develop a skin rash or a slight irritation. Even if a child were to swallow sand containing oil, it would be unlikely to cause anything more serious than an upset stomach, according to Richard G. Thomas, director of the regional poison center at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

“We have kids getting into oil every day--sewing machine oil, motor oil . . . ,” Thomas said in a recent interview. “All of this is heavier than that, bordering on tar, so we’re really talking about 1) something that’s not going to taste good to a child and 2) if they get small amounts of it, the sand would be more a danger to the child than the oil.”

Tourism officials, meanwhile, have a different worry. Some fear that publicity over the spill--even though the shoreline is now clean--will discourage students who will soon be going on spring break vacations from flocking to beaches in Orange County.

To combat that, officials in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach are preparing to run at least two full-page advertisements in USA Today--at a cost of $150,000 to be paid by British Petroleum--proclaiming that the spill is over and the beaches are restored.

Jim Shapiro, a 19-year-old Yale University student, telephoned the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce about the condition of beaches before arriving here last weekend.

“I was worried that I’d get out here and it would be all black and they’d offer me $7 an hour to help out,” said Shapiro, as he stretched out on the sand Wednesday near the Santa Ana River mouth.

With the seasonal change in wave direction, lifeguard Richardson predicted that some oil still buried beneath and around rock jetties and bluffs may be pulled back into the water, only to wash up on nearby beaches. But he said that any oil film should “only last a tide cycle or two.”

State biologists and environmentalists suggest that it is too soon to tell how much oil is still in the water or has settled on the ocean floor. Tests by private consultants on samples of ocean-bottom sediments are under way. But marine experts say thousands of clams, crabs and the tiny grunion fish may have already been harmed.

Today, state Department of Fish and Game officials will begin the lengthy and arduous task of assessing the damage to the local grunion population, scooping up thousands of eggs along the shoreline and bringing them back to laboratories for in-house hatching.

By comparing the hatching population both with pre-spill levels and with unaffected coastal areas, biologists hope to gauge for the first time the spill’s impact on the little fish, said John Grant, the department’s coordinator of marine damage assessment.

At the same time, state officials also plan to send divers into the water around the spill area next week to lay down 100-meter sampling lines along the ocean floor and try to track the population of worms, starfish, shrimp and other marine life that are keys to the food chain.

The samplings will be the first in-depth statistical assessment of the spill’s effect on the marine environment, Grant said, adding that the preliminary, visual observations are not promising.

“I believe there will be significant damage to a lot of these critters,” Grant said. “It could be devastating.”

None of the county’s saltwater marshes--areas of concern because they provide safe nesting havens for migratory fowl--were seriously damaged by the oil spill.

“God shined on us that first week,” said Gary Gorman, executive director of the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy. “The winds were light and the seas were calm. That allowed us to skim up a lot of oil. Otherwise, the damage up and down the coast could have been more severe. We dodged a bullet.”

Times staff writers Eric Lichtblau and Lanie Jones contributed to this report.

Spill Toll 394,000 gallons of Alaskan crude were spilled Feb. 7 from the American Trader. 20 miles of Orange County shoreline were closed, some for as long as five weeks. 720 birds died; another 309 were injured and are being cared for or have been released. $19.5 million has been spent on the cleanup; final costs could top $22 million. 1,500 workers were employed by British Petroleum for the cleanup at the height of the effort. 9,000 tons of booms, towels and pom-pom-like devices were used to soak up oil.