New Agency to Protect Coast From Oil Spills : Environment: State office will try to prevent offshore disasters and lead cleanup efforts. Program is the first of its kind in nation.

When brown waves of crude oil surged ashore in Huntington Beach last year, the state dispatched its entire oil-spill team: two people.

Now, after lessons learned from that emergency, the state is assembling a full-time crew of biologists, game wardens, lawyers, technicians and financial analysts to protect California’s 1,100-mile coastline from oil spills.

By fall, this specialized team--the new state Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response--will have 111 members. Created by the Legislature in September in response to tanker accidents in Huntington Beach and Alaska, the office is the only one in the nation devoted exclusively to avoiding and responding to oil spills.

“We’re the first to have a program of this nature and magnitude in the country,” said Edward Willis, a top administrator with the state Department of Fish and Game who is coordinating the start-up of the agency. “But others will probably follow. California quite often is on the forefront.”

Already, 37 new employees are in place, including five in Southern California. A mobile animal rescue trailer has been stationed in Carpinteria, south of Santa Barbara, where it can be hauled anywhere in the state to aid injured birds and sea mammals.

Quick-response teams are being stationed in several locations along the coast, including Long Beach, so they can be dispatched to spills to guide cleanup crews and try to protect wildlife and natural resources.

On-scene emergency work is just one role of the office, called OSPR, which is under the auspices of the Department of Fish and Game. When not responding to spills, the employees will work to prevent them.

They also will be refining skills and studying ways to limit a slick’s damage to resources and improve techniques for oil cleanup and animal rehabilitation. The team will also add up the economic and environmental toll of spills and sue polluters, if necessary, to recover damages and costs.

Although the new office is hailed as a major step forward, state officials and environmentalists agree it isn’t a cure-all. They know that no matter how large a team they assemble, they cannot prevent all spills, and once one occurs, damage to the coastline is inevitable because, at best, only 20% of the oil can be recovered.

“We’re still putting a program in place and we’re not really sure how effective it will be yet,” said Willis, the agency’s acting deputy administrator. “But one thing’s for sure. Anything we do is more than we have done in the past.”

While many state agencies are struggling to maintain their operations in an era of budget cuts, this newly created office is on a hiring spree. Funded by a new 4-cents-per-barrel tax on crude oil, the office’s $15-million budget for the next year cannot be touched by budget negotiators. Another 25-cents-per-barrel fee has created a $100-million trust fund to pay for emergency cleanups.

By fall, 15 spill team members will operate out of offices in Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara. Five environmental specialists will help wildlife and assess damage, seven wardens will work on prevention and take the lead during spills, and three technical experts will direct oil containment and cleanup. Twelve are expected to be at work by mid-July.

Fifteen others will be stationed along Northern California’s coast, while the rest will work out of Sacramento.

A team of 111 may sound small for tackling major spills, but Willis said that that is the permanent staff for coordinating work. The labor of skimming oil from the ocean and cleansing beaches will be performed by others.

Hiring those cleanup workers, which numbered 1,000 for the Huntington Beach spill, remains the responsibility of the oil company involved.

State officials agree that if a major spill such as the Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska occurs in California, they will be unable to prevent extensive damage to beaches, wildlife and other natural resources. However, they say that they will be better prepared to quickly react and contain a slick and minimize the damage of smaller spills such as the one off Huntington Beach.

Although responding to spills is their most dramatic job, prevention will be their main task.

To start, the more than 200 companies that operate a marine terminal or oil vessel must provide an oil-spill contingency plan by July 31.

The plans must outline training, operations and steps taken to prevent and handle spills. Failing to comply can bring criminal fines up to $250,000 a day.

The OSPR office is requiring all harbors to develop a safety plan by Dec. 31. Also, vessel operators must prove that they have at least $500 million in liability insurance by Jan. 1.

Although the office is not in full swing, it has seen some action. Nine team members were dispatched to El Segundo in March when fuel leaked from a Chevron pipeline in Santa Monica Bay. Training has included a simulated spill in San Francisco Bay.

“We are ready to go,” said Mary Gale, a spokeswoman for OSPR. “We are fully capable should a spill occur. All these people have been involved in oil spill activity for years.”