Major California oil spill an ‘environmental catastrophe’
- Beaches in Orange County closed, wetlands contaminated
- Huge oil spill caused by a broken pipeline off the coast
Authorities in California’s beachfront Orange County cities were scrambling to mitigate the fallout from a major oil spill off the coast described as an “environmental catastrophe”.
As of Sunday, the oil plume from the 480,000-litre spill of post-production crude was an estimated 10km (6.7 miles) long and stretched along the popular shorelines of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, Huntington Beach city authorities said.
“The spill has significantly affected Huntington Beach, with substantial ecological impacts occurring at the beach and at the Huntington Beach Wetlands,” a statement said.
The spill, which started around 9am on Saturday, was caused by a breach of an oil rig pipeline.
The oil rig was operated by Beta Offshore, a California subsidiary of Houston-based Amplify Energy Corporation.
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Major oil spill forces California beaches to close along US state’s southern coast
In the predawn hours of Sunday, oil and dead animals had begun washing up on Huntington Beach, a city of around 200,000 people located about 65km south of Los Angeles, Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley tweeted.
“We’ve started to find dead birds and fish washing up on the shore,” she said.
Kim Carr, the mayor of Huntington Beach said: “In the coming days and weeks we challenge the responsible parties to do everything possible to rectify this environmental catastrophe.”
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Carr said the beaches of the community nicknamed “Surf City” could remain closed for weeks or even months. The oil created a miles-wide sheen in the ocean and washed ashore in sticky, black globules.
Amplify Energy CEO Martyn Willsher said at a press conference in Long Beach that the pipeline had been shut off and remaining oil suctioned out. He said divers were still trying to determine where and why the spill occurred.
Steel later told CNN: “This is a really serious disaster”.
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At the Sunday press conference, US Coast Guard captain Rebecca Ore acknowledged the situation “is very upsetting for citizens here in Southern California”.
Residents were warned to steer clear of the shoreline, and the ocean was closed to swimming and surfing “due to potential contamination,” the city said, adding that the final day of the Pacific Airshow had been cancelled.
The US Coast Guard ran point on a unified command of federal, state, county and city agencies established to tackle the spill, with fire and marine safety personnel deployed to implement environmental containment efforts.
Oil production off California’s coast has declined sharply since its peak in the 1990s, in part due to the state’s strict environmental rules. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom said he wants to end oil drilling in the state by 2045.
Offshore drilling was restricted in the state after a devastating 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara that dumped 80,000 barrels into the ocean. More recently another spill off Santa Barbara in 2015 sent as much as 2,400 barrels onto the shore and into the Pacific.
The spill comes three decades after a massive oil leak hit the same stretch of Orange County coast. On February 7, 1990, the oil tanker American Trader ran over its anchor off Huntington Beach, spilling nearly 1.6 million litres of crude. Fish and about 3,400 birds were killed.
In 2015, a ruptured pipeline north of Santa Barbara sent 541,313 litres of crude oil gushing onto Refugio State Beach.
The area affected by the latest spill is home to threatened and endangered species, including a plump shorebird called the snowy plover, the California least tern and humpback whales.
Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Reuters
