Calm Seas Help Out as Crews Finish Cleanup of Five-Mile Oil Spill

Relatively calm seas and moderate winds allowed crews to finish their cleanup Sunday of a five-mile oil slick off the coast of Ventura County caused by a weekend rupture of an offshore oil pipeline that spilled between 420 and 2,100 gallons of crude into the sea.

Lt. Angel Raton of the California Department of Fish and Game said calm conditions prevented the slick from moving onshore and gave cleanup crews an opportunity “to go out in boats and scoop the oil off the surface.”

By Sunday morning, Unocal had retrieved most of the oil that leaked from its Platform Gina on Friday and asked government permission to cease its cleanup efforts, said company spokesman James H. Bray. The Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Minerals Management Service, and the Coast Guard granted permission to shut down shortly after noon.

“We are in a wind-down situation,” Bray said. Crews collected the few remaining pockets of heavy crude Sunday, he said, leaving a very light coat of oil on a half-mile patch of ocean about seven miles from shore.

“That sheen is almost unrecoverable,” he said. The last vestiges should evaporate or dissipate within days and never reach shore, he said. “We will continue to have people on the beach--just monitoring--for a couple of days.”

Meanwhile, state and federal authorities continued to investigate the cause of the spill, which occurred when a work boat ripped open an oil pipeline on the platform four miles southwest of Oxnard.

Lt. Reed Smith of the fish and game department said Unocal may face civil or criminal charges under state laws that hold oil companies liable for spills. He said the investigation might take as long as two months.

Cleanup crews spent the weekend containing the slick about six miles from ecologically sensitive habitats on Anacapa Island and Mugu Lagoon on the mainland. After unfurling and dragging oil-containment booms--self-inflating polyurethane fences used to corral oil at sea--workers removed the oil from the ocean surface with mechanical skimmers and pumped it into tanks.

So far, biologists have found little sign of environmental damage. The Department of Fish and Game reported that three birds were found covered with oil. Biologists continued to patrol the beach in search of other fouled birds, Raton said.

Smith said the slick probably harmed eggs and larvae of mackerel and sardines that spawn in the channel.

The relatively small spill occurred about 2 p.m. Friday when a work boat severed a 10-inch Unocal pipeline that carries 1,250 barrels of oil a day from the platform to shore.

The boat was dragging a grappling hook to retrieve an anchor chain that had dropped from a buoy near the platform. The 197-foot boat snagged the pipeline about 200 yards from the platform and pulled on it until it snapped on one of the platform’s legs, Unocal officials said.

Automatic sensors quickly shut off the pipeline’s pumps, preventing the escape of more oil.

Several area groups joined the cleanup, including Clean Seas, a nonprofit cooperative financed by 19 area oil companies. Clean Seas sent out two vessels and several small boats, assistant manager John R. Herring said.

Also included in the efforts were seven boats provided by the Ventura County Fishermen’s Oil Response Team, a special reserve force prepared to help protect the Channel Islands and coastline in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Fishermen have a special interest in protecting these waters, said Michele Sojka, the group’s coordinator.