Spill Puts Damper on Outings to Beach

All 3-year-old Elliot Thompson wanted to do was throw some rocks in the ocean.

The Thompson family, like the other dozen campers at McGrath State Beach on Tuesday, had heard about the oil spill that was being cleaned just half a mile don the beach, but didn’t see the harm in letting Elliot chuck a few choice stones.

“He was throwing the rocks when he turned and ran up to me,” said Al Thompson, Elliot’s father. “He came up and held out his hands and said, ‘Look, daddy.’ His hands were covered with oil.”

Thompson said his family members were not the only ones on the beach to face the fallout of the spill.

“There was another girl who came to our trailer and asked if we had any gasoline,” Thompson said. “She had been walking on the beach and her feet were black with the stuff.”

That family left the campground shortly after the incident.

State park officials said about eight trailers were in the park over Christmas weekend when the spill was discovered and, since that time, several campers have pulled out.

On Tuesday, Tom Tucker and Robin Kisinger were warming up the motor on their camper, getting ready to head out.

“They told us we couldn’t use the beach, and we’re bird watchers, so this thing’s got us kind of spooked,” Tucker said.

The previous night, Tucker said he had heard workers setting off explosive charges around oil-stained McGrath Lake. The bursts, he said, were probably meant to keep birds from landing in the oil.

“It’s really sad when something like this happens,” Kisinger said. “We wanted to stop here so we could go out on some walks and see the wildlife here, and this just spoils it.”

Retired teachers Elaine and Alan Olson said they have been coming to the rolling dunes of McGrath State Beach since 1969 and have never been bothered by oil before.

“This is the first time we’ve ever seen anything like this,” Olson said. “I think it’s turned a lot of people away.”

Campers weren’t the only ones who abandoned the area Tuesday. Lifeguard Mark Thompson was on the lookout to keep surfers away from the closed beach.

“My job is to look out for the public’s health and safety,” he said. “And today that means keeping them out of the water.”

That was bad news for Ventura residents John Coffman and David Hudoba, who could only watch as decent swells swept to shore unused.

“We had a feeling this was going to be closed off,” Coffman said. “We just wanted to come down here and see how bad it looked.”

As the two poked around the beach, they noticed only a few small globules of oil washed up on the sand.

“I don’t see any oil out there, but we can deal with going farther up the beach if that’s what they want,” Hudoba said.

Which is exactly what Thompson asked the surfers to do.

A bit farther north, he told them, there were one- to three-foot swells. Also, “the water up there’s safer.”

“If there are still good waves up there, then we’ll be happy,” Hudoba said. “I’m not thrilled with the idea of going out in this stuff anyway.”