Stream in Remote Canyon Sporting a Natural Coat of Oil

Mary Flores first noticed it two weeks ago when Riley, her faithful dog, stuck his nose up at his favorite drinking hole.

Turns out Riley’s astute snoot was right on the money.

He discovered oil.

“He’s a smart dog,” said Flores, who cares for an elderly woman in this remote, idyllic canyon about seven miles into the foothills from the Ventura city limits.

Like a scene out of the “Beverly Hillbillies,” and much like it has for generations, oil has again been seeping naturally out of this isolated stretch of Ventura County hillsides.

And while state wildlife officials say there is no cause for alarm, neighbors in this foothill oasis are concerned.

Untold amounts of oil have coated the stream that cuts through Wheeler Canyon, and it shows no signs of stopping.

“It’s not a lot, but if we don’t do something about it, the water flows down to the Santa Clara River and out to the ocean,” Flores said.

Initially unaware that state wildlife officials had been there, a parade of city and county firefighters and hazardous materials officials made their way along the winding Wheeler Canyon Road to the site at about noon Wednesday after being called by an area resident.

What they found, county Fire Department Battalion Chief Larry Whelan said, was a two-mile stretch of stream and creek bed covered in a sheen of oil. A helicopter flyover verified what the Department of Fish and Game had concluded during a visit to the site Saturday: The oil was seeping naturally, there was nothing they could do, and nature should be allowed to take its course.

“They’re frequent in Ventura County,” Department of Fish and Game spokesman Patrick Moore said of the natural oil seeps. “Animals have been living with that kind of thing in that area long before the Europeans have been here. As things stand right now, we’re just leaving it alone.”

To be sure, natural oil seeps have been part of the county’s way of life for hundreds of years.

Long before the oil industry began tapping the natural seeps in the late 1800s, Native Americans sealed their canoes and huts with natural tar.

Oil seepage lured prospectors to the county after the Civil War. The prospectors dug wells or drilled slanted tunnels into mountainsides, letting the oil drip out into barrels.

Today’s beach-goers and surfers also discover the remnants of natural seepage on the bottom of their feet.

In the summer of 1992, an estimated 60 barrels or more of crude oil was found in the creeks of Ventura County, natural seepage triggered by a string of earthquakes.

“With any kind of shaking of the ground . . . liquid seeks its own level,” said Dana Michaels, spokeswoman for Department of Fish and Game’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response. “Whatever gravity will allow it to do, it will do.”

Michaels said state legislation prohibits the agency from using its oil spill response funds to control natural seepage.

If the seepage intensifies or begins to pose a significant impact on wildlife, however, federal and state environmental officials would step in, Michaels said.