Offshore Oil Spill Near Rosarito, Mexico, Hits Beaches

Efforts were underway Friday to clean up as much as 110,000 gallons of fuel oil that spilled off the coast of Mexico near Rosarito a day earlier.

The oil, which was being piped from a U.S.-owned tanker anchored 1 1/2 miles offshore to an onshore storage facility, spilled due to a pipe failure, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Officials said some of the oil had come ashore and 200 Mexican navy personnel, working with a U.S. cleanup contractor, spent several hours Friday cleaning beaches.

“There was a significant impact,” said Coast Guard spokeswoman Jamie Devitt-Chacon.

It was not immediately clear whether there was more oil in the ocean, or whether it posed a threat to U.S. shores, about 30 miles to the north.

During a Coast Guard overflight Friday evening, searchers found “some light sheen on top of the water, in patches just west of Rosarito,” Devitt-Chacon said.

“We’re still trying to determine how much oil we’re dealing with,” she said.

Another Coast Guard overflight of the area was scheduled for this morning.

The tanker, owned by Chevron, was unloading fuel oil to a facility owned by Pemex, the Mexican national oil company. The facility supplies oil to a Mexican government-owned power generating plant at the north end of Rosarito.