PIRU : River Oil Spill Cleanup Completed

The state Department of Fish and Game on Wednesday declared clean the 173,000-gallon oil spill that drained into the Santa Clara River near Piru after a pipeline cracked during the Northridge earthquake.

The cleanup took more than 600 workers six weeks to complete and cost more than $14 million.

State Fish and Game Capt. Roger Reese said the Arco-owned Four Corners Pipe Line Co. did a good job responding to the spill, which polluted more than 12 miles of the Santa Clara River and threatened its sensitive wildlife habitat.

“We’re doing a damage assessment, but we won’t know the results of that for some time,” Reese said. Company officials said the spill had a minimal effect on plants and animals living in the area.

Meanwhile, the Taft-based oil company responsible for the McGrath Lake oil spill issued another report to state water officials. But like others written by Berry Petroleum, it fails to address the cause of the spill, discovered Dec. 25 near Oxnard.

Officials at the Regional Water Quality Control Board said Wednesday that it is not unusual for companies responsible for oil spills to delay releasing relevant information.

“I would say this is typical of the kind of response we get,” said Michael Lyons, who heads the surveillance unit of the water quality control board in Los Angeles.

“The company responsible for its spill tends to present information in as concise a form as possible,” he said.

The two-page report addresses six specific questions asked by the water agency on Feb. 1, including what caused the spill and what measures were taken to prevent it.

But Berry Petroleum said Monday it still does not know how 84,000 gallons of thick crude oil was released into the environmentally sensitive McGrath Lake wetlands over three days.