Big Oil Spill Called Likely by U.S. Agency

By KENNETH R. WEISS

May 28, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The federal agency that proposes more oil drilling in coastal waters from Ventura to Morro Bay predicts a 94% chance of a major oil spill off Southern California in the next 30 years.

Based on a history of accidents, the federal Minerals Management Service also predicts a 100% chance of a moderate-size spill--about the size of the American Trader tanker spill that blackened several miles of coastline in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach last year.

The agency plans to announce in July the risk associated with drilling for oil on the 500,000 acres it proposes for development off the coast of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. This stretch of coastline has most of the state’s existing offshore oil platforms and is the only area off California targeted for more drilling in this decade.

Earlier calculations showed that drilling for oil in the 500,000 acres and other new areas off the coast make up 4% of the overall risk of a major oil spill and 5% of the risk of a moderate spill. Agency experts anticipate little change when the new risk analysis is released.

These predictions cover spills of at least 1,000 barrels, or 42,000 gallons--roughly 100 times the size of the spill from Unocal’s Platform Gina that created a five-mile oil slick off the Ventura County coast May 10.

Smaller spills occur too frequently to bother calculating the risk, agency officials said.

“Everything carries a risk,” said J. Lisle Reed, Pacific regional director of the Minerals Management Service. He said his agency must balance potential ecological damage and cleanup costs with what it predicts will be the tremendous windfall from tapping oil reserves in the Santa Barbara Channel.

“Can we tolerate an oil spill like the American Trader spill every 10 years, in exchange for the opportunity to produce billions of dollars worth of oil off Southern California? In the macro picture, it is obvious that the benefits outweigh the risks,” Reed said.

Most state and local officials sharply disagree. They recently launched a campaign to halt additional oil leases off the stretch of coastline from Ventura to Morro Bay.

“There has been an automatic assumption that any magnitude of oil drilling was acceptable because of our need for oil,” Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy said. “I take serious issue with that.”

McCarthy contends that California’s remaining offshore oil reserves would only supply a few days of the nation’s energy needs and do not justify the risk of a major oil spill.

Government, industry and environmentalists agree that oil tankers are the biggest cause for concern. Large tankers carrying crude oil from Alaska or overseas make up more than half of the risk of a major spill of 420,000 gallons or more, according to the minerals service, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Offshore oil platforms, their pipelines and associated tankers account for about a third of the risk of a major spill, according to the same statistics. They also show that offshore oil production makes up more than half of the risk of a moderate spill of 42,000 gallons to 419,999 gallons.

The American Trader spill off Huntington Beach last year was considered moderate; it released 397,000 gallons of oil. The tanker spilled part of its load when its anchor punctured its own hull.

A year earlier, the Exxon Valdez disgorged 10 million gallons of oil when it ran aground on a submerged reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. In 1969, the blowout of a Unocal drilling platform off Santa Barbara unleashed 3 million gallons. Both are considered major spills.

Area officials and environmentalists worry about the risk concentrated in the Santa Barbara Channel, which has 26 of the 33 platforms in state and federally controlled waters off the California coast.

“If the wind is blowing in one direction it can blow the slick on shore,” said Henry Feniger, president of the Santa Barbara-based environmental group Get Oil Out. “If it is blowing the opposite direction, it can blow it to the Channel Islands. Either way, it could be devastating.”

To prepare for such a threat, a consortium of major oil companies selected Port Hueneme as the site of its first of five regional response centers in the United States capable of tackling spills of up to 9 million gallons. The center is expected to be operational in 1993.

On a smaller scale, the oil industry has maintained Clean Seas, the largest and oldest cleanup cooperative in the nation. It is designed to handle a moderate-size spill.

Despite widespread agreement that Southern California has the best trained and equipped cleanup teams, experts say it would be difficult to protect the coast from a spill a fraction of the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

“With any spill of any significance, we are going to have oil hitting the beach,” said Skip Onstad, former manager of Clean Seas and now head of the response center at Port Hueneme. “Hopefully, we will be able to reduce the oil that hits the beach.”

Much of the trouble comes from limitations in cleanup technology. Floating plastic booms used to corral oil and skimmers that scoop it from the ocean surface become ineffective in moderate and heavy seas.

Commercial fishermen and other mariners point out that the Santa Barbara Channel is volatile, with winds easily kicking up large swells.

“We are kidding ourselves that cleanup is going to be helpful,” said McCarthy, who is also chairman of the State Lands Commission, which oversees offshore oil production in state waters. “Cleanup technology is a distant second-best. Prevention of oil spills is the key.”

In doing its own risk analysis, minerals service biologists assume that a spill will interfere with sea life, including the migration of whales and the nesting and breeding of other animals in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

Biologists do not try to determine how many oiled birds or sea lions with matted fur would die in a catastrophe, said Steven Alcorn, chief of the service’s environmental assessment in the Pacific region. Instead, they focus on a spill’s effect on a species’ population, particularly those listed as in danger of extinction.

Alcorn said a major spill would threaten the survival of endangered brown pelicans if it came during the springtime nesting season on Anacapa Island.

“If there is oil in the water and the pelicans are feeding, it clings to their feathers and then rubs off on their eggs,” he said. “Some of the oil is actually absorbed into the egg, possibly deforming the embryo or killing it.”

The long-term effect on wildlife is still hotly debated among marine biologists employed by government and industry. Although more than 10,000 loons and western grebes died in the 1969 spill off Santa Barbara, scientists had no studies to compare with the bird populations in later years.

Most biologists are awaiting the outcome of studies measuring the ecological impact of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

Meanwhile, minerals service scientists report that there is no evidence of long-term damage. Many point out that sea life has coexisted for centuries with natural seepage from the ocean floor that continues to send globs of tar washing up on area beaches.

“If there were a significant spill, a large number of birds would get killed, there would be oil on the beach and people would be upset,” said Fred Piltz, chief of environmental studies for the agency’s Pacific region. “But from what I’ve seen, I doubt there would be lasting effects other than that.”

Piltz said any visible damage seems to disappear within a couple of years of a spill. “As far as I know, we have not seen any effects on fish or animals that live in tidal areas,” he said.

“For the Minerals Management Service to say that oil doesn’t hurt fish is nonsense,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns. in Sausalito. “It may not hurt the adult fish, but it is going to hurt the eggs and larvae, and you won’t see the results for several years.”

To protect their livelihood, Ventura County fishermen have formed a group of trained volunteers to help crews battle a spill of any size. Two weeks ago, the group got its first test in helping contain a tiny spill caused by an oil work boat that ruptured a pipeline while dragging a grappling hook.

“It isn’t going to be very long before someone nips off a platform or there is a collision in the channel,” said Brian Jenison, an organizer of the Fishermen’s Oil Response Team. “We need to have every commercial fisherman trained and ready.”

Risk of Large Oil Spills of Southern California Coast

Major Spill (More than 420,000 gallons in the next 30 years)

Overall Risk: 94%

Platform Risks

Offshore oil development proposed in 1989: 4%

Oil platforms in state waters: 8%

Oil platforms in federal waters: 22%

Tankering Risks

Transferring oil to smaller tankers: 5%

Tankers with imported oil: 8%

Tankers with Alaskan oil: 47%

Moderate Spill (More than 42,000 gallons in the next 30 years)