Massive oil spill sends crude onto Orange County beaches, killing birds, marine life

[Stevicus]

Oil spill hits Orange County coast after 126,000 gallons leak - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

It was apparently due to a ruptured pipeline.

Crews raced Sunday to contain the damage from a major oil spill off the Orange County coast that left crude spoiling beaches, killing fish and birds and threatening local wetlands.

The spill, first reported Saturday, originated from a pipeline off the coast of Huntington Beach connected to an offshore oil platform known as Elly. The failure caused at least 126,000 gallons of crude to spill into coastal waters creating a slick that spanned about 8,320 acres— larger than the size of Santa Monica—and sent oil to the shores of Newport Beach and Huntington Beach early Sunday.

Oil from the spill also infiltrated Talbert Marsh, a 25-acre ecological reserve in Huntington Beach that is home to dozens of species of birds.

Officials said Sunday afternoon that it appears the pipeline has stopped leaking. But Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said despite efforts to patch the damaged pipeline on Saturday, oil continued to spill from it through the night and divers were still working to repair it early Sunday.

Not a good day to go to the beach.

By sunrise Sunday, oil had washed ashore in Huntington Beach with slicks visible in the ocean, prompting officials to close a stretch of sand from Seapoint Street to the Newport Beach city line at the Santa Ana River jetty. Dead birds and fish had begun to wash up on the shore, officials said.

“In a year that has been filled with incredibly challenging issues this oil spill constitutes one of the most devastating situations that our community has dealt with in decades,” said Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr. “Rest assured that the team in Huntington Beach mobilized quickly, and we are proactively responding. We are doing everything in our power to protect the health and safety of our residents, our visitors and our natural habitats.”

The oil will likely continue to encroach on Orange County beaches in the next few days, officials said.

Despite the beach closure, residents walked out onto the sand early Sunday to observe the damage.

“It’s terrible,” said Jon Ely, a 58-year-old Huntington Beach resident. “This stuff is not going to come up. It’s goo, and it’s thick.”

Mike Ruby, a Manhattan Beach resident, held off paddling out at Newport Beach Sunday afternoon for 30 minutes after seeing the sign posted along the sand, “Due to oil spill the water is closed.” But his desire to get wet won out.

Emerging from the sea, Ruby said he could taste the oil mixing with the the salty ocean water, but it was worth it. “It felt terrific to get wet, the sunshine and everything,” he said.

Orange County Rep. Michelle Steel sent a letter to President Joe Biden Sunday requesting a major disaster declaration for Orange County, which would make additional federal assistance available for state and local agencies and individuals impacted by the spill.

“It is imperative that the federal government assist in recovery efforts,” she wrote. “I have serious concerns about the environmental impacts of the spill and applaud the workers who are doing their best to prevent the oil from hitting sensitive wetlands.”

Huntington State Beach is home to a number of species of birds, including gulls, willets, elegant terns and reddish egrets, which are a rarity on the west coast, according to Ben Smith, a biologist and environmental consultant for the county.

Smith drove to the beach Sunday morning to observe wildlife ahead of a construction project planned at the mouth of the Santa Ana River, which opens into the ocean at the border of Huntington State Beach and Newport Beach.

“There’s tar everywhere,” he said, as he surveyed the birds congregated on the north bank of the river. “You think by now we would have figured out how to keep this kind of thing from happening, but I guess not.”

An aerial view of a major oil spill washing ashore on the border of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
The spill could have a significant impact on the habitat, he said.

“If the birds get into this tar it’s going to stick to their feathers and it’s going to be a problem for them,” he said. “It contaminated the water — it’s bad for the wildlife, bad for the water, bad for the people who use the water. It’s really unfortunate.”

There were no immediate reports of marine mammals being affected but the fallout for them usually emerges days after a spill event, said Krysta Higuchi, spokeswoman for the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach.

“The main animals being affected right now are birds,” she said. “Pacific marine mammal center is on a standby mode. This is more of a marathon than a sprint. We have all hands on deck. We’re preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.”

Pacific marine mammal center will be doing intake and triage on seals and sea lions, she said. Whales or dolphins would be transported to Sea World in San Diego because they have the bigger tanks.

“The public has been absolutely amazing asking how they can help,” she said. “This is definitely going to be a very large cleanup. It’s just everywhere. It’s going to be a long process”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) proposed a bill in January that would permanently ban the Department of the Interior from allowing new leases to allow for the exploration, development or production of oil or natural gas off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington state.

“This oil spill is a tragic reminder that offshore drilling is a devastating threat to our coast and its wildlife,” said Miyoko Saka****a, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Oceans program. “I’ve seen the aging oil platforms off Huntington Beach up close, and I know it’s past time to decommission these time bombs. Even after fines and criminal charges, the oil industry is still spilling and leaking into California’s coastal waters because these companies just aren’t capable of operating safely.”

The worst marine oil spill in California’s history occurred in 1969, after a blowout of a drilling rig platform resulted in the spill of 4.2 million gallons of crude off Santa Barbara. Crude oil spewed out of the rupture at a rate of 1,000 gallons an hour for a month before it could be slowed; thousands of birds, fish and sea mammals died.

The 1969 offshore oil spill was the nation’s worst until the Exxon Valdez dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil off the coast of Alaska in 1989. That spill painted beaches black, and resulted in the corpses of seals and dolphins washing in with the tides.

The largest marine oil spill in U.S. history resulted in 134 million gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico after an explosion in 2010 rocked the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform.

The San Francisco Bay Area recently commemorated the 50th anniversary of the devastating 1971 oil spill that dumped 800,000 gallons of bunker fuel in the bay. The spill occurred after two oil tankers struck each other in heavy fog. Thousands of birds died.

Sunday afternoon, Ron Schwalbe, who lives in the Balboa peninsula, walked along the sand in Newport Beach, careful to dodge the oil as he snapped photos.

“I’m not surprised and I’m not shocked or anything like that. It’s just odd that it happens in this day and age,” he said. “With all the technology we have, why couldn’t they prevent it? ”

One official quoted above said that the oil platforms off Huntington Beach were so old that he compared them to "time bombs" and suggested they be decommissioned.

I still recall the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the explosion in the Gulf of Mexico which spewed out 134,000,000 gallons.

That's a lot of oil.

Feinstein proposed the West Coast Protection Act of 2021, which would ban any new oil drilling off the West Coast.

I think this country is in a quandary about oil and energy in general. We like using oil. We like driving big, gas-guzzling trucks, SUVs, and RVs all over creation. We like flying to exotic destinations, which also uses fuel. We like consuming energy for our phones, computers, tablets, TVs, and any other electrical gadget they come up with. Although we got a wake-up call nearly half a century ago when the country was hit with an energy crisis, we quickly forgot about that and didn't put much effort into finding alternatives or solutions.

So, now we're stuck, and filthy, oil-slicked beaches are one of the consequences of short-sightedness and neglect of infrastructure.

 

[PureX]

The problem is that oil energy is a big money pump for the rich and powerful. And money pumps are more sacred than gods. Money IS God in a capitalist culture. So we haven't bothered to look for better energy sources when we could have. And we still won't as long as the money keeps flowing into the pockets of the rich and powerful, because they make all the decisions.

 

[Revoltingest]

The problem is that oil energy is a big money pump for the rich and powerful. And money pumps are more sacred than gods. Money IS God in a capitalist culture. So we haven't bothered to look for better energy sources when we could have. And we still won't as long as the money keeps flowing into the pockets of the rich and powerful, because they make all the decisions.

No responsibility for the masses, who use oil to heat homes,
fuel cars, fly planes, generate electricity, & grill food?
Even socialists & communists use fossil fuels. Do you?

 

[PureX]

No responsibility for the masses, who use oil to heat homes,
fuel cars, fly planes, generate electricity, & grill food?
Even socialists & communists use fossil fuels. Do you?

"The masses" are guilty of allowing the wealthy elites to take and hold control of the destiny of humanity, certainly.

 

[Revoltingest]

"The masses" are guilty of allowing the wealthy elites to take and hold control of the destiny of humanity, certainly.

The masses don't care enuf to do much personally.
And this even extends to voting for what leaders do.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

The problem is that oil energy is a big money pump for the rich and powerful. And money pumps are more sacred than gods. Money IS God in a capitalist culture. So we haven't bothered to look for better energy sources when we could have. And we still won't as long as the money keeps flowing into the pockets of the rich and powerful, because they make all the decisions.

There's that, but you also have to prove that modern western spirituality cares too. When Jesus would multiply or net the fish, the message is that the power of god supersedes that the of nature, and you don't have to worry about its limitations. Therefore, the beach or the fish is not sacred, there is something above it that is. If the critical mass of the population thought so, this probably would not occur

 

[PureX]

The masses don't care enuf to do much personally.

"Care enough" about what? The masses just want to live their lives in peace and relative security, and pass those gifts onto their children. And they are happy to cooperate and work with and for each other to do that. The masses aren't concerned with controlling everything and everyone around them. Which is why the masses keep letting those who ARE concerned with ruling everything and everyone take control, and cause so much suffering and damage. It's a fundamental lesson that humanity still has not managed to learn: that those who want to be in control of everyone else are exactly the people who should never be given that ability.

 

[Stevicus]

The masses don't care enuf to do much personally.
And this even extends to voting for what leaders do.

The masses don't listen and they argue too much. I try to tell people how to vote, but do you think they listen to me? That's the main problem right there.

 

[Revoltingest]

"Care enough" about what?

Our environment.
When even this fire breathing capitalist cares more
about it than liberals I know, this points to a country
wide caring problem.

 

[Revoltingest]

The masses don't listen and they argue too much. I try to tell people how to vote, but do you think they listen to me? That's the main problem right there.

It's like we share one brain problem.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If not oil it will be something else....

People will never learn. There will always be some disaster whenever energy is involved.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Oil spill hits Orange County coast after 126,000 gallons leak - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

It was apparently due to a ruptured pipeline.

Not a good day to go to the beach.

One official quoted above said that the oil platforms off Huntington Beach were so old that he compared them to "time bombs" and suggested they be decommissioned.

I still recall the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the explosion in the Gulf of Mexico which spewed out 134,000,000 gallons.

That's a lot of oil.

Feinstein proposed the West Coast Protection Act of 2021, which would ban any new oil drilling off the West Coast.

I think this country is in a quandary about oil and energy in general. We like using oil. We like driving big, gas-guzzling trucks, SUVs, and RVs all over creation. We like flying to exotic destinations, which also uses fuel. We like consuming energy for our phones, computers, tablets, TVs, and any other electrical gadget they come up with. Although we got a wake-up call nearly half a century ago when the country was hit with an energy crisis, we quickly forgot about that and didn't put much effort into finding alternatives or solutions.

So, now we're stuck, and filthy, oil-slicked beaches are one of the consequences of short-sightedness and neglect of infrastructure.

Calling this spill 'massive' is alarmist compared to others like the Exxon Valdez.

 

[Stevicus]

Dead fish and birds are washing up on the coast of Southern California after more than 125,000 gallons of oil spilled into the Pacific Ocean (msn.com)

 

[Stevicus]

Evidence suggests ship anchor snagged, dragged oil pipeline (apnews.com)

A lot of ships have been anchored offshore lately because there's only one or two ports open due to COVID.

 

[Stevicus]

California oil spill offers more mysteries than answers - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

The investigation continues.

Nearly a week after a 13-inch tear in an undersea pipeline resulted in a massive oil spill off the Southern California coast, the clues keep piling up, but the mystery of what caused the rupture and who is ultimately responsible remains unsolved.

Like other investigations into mechanical failures that have led to catastrophic results, an understanding of the chain of events that led to the spill is playing out like twist-filled thriller. Leads are being followed. Some have already resulted in dead ends; others are still unfolding.

It’s still unclear how the pipeline ruptured, when the damage was done and what could have prevented it. Even the exact location of the pipe running along Orange County coast is also the subject of some doubt.

“The frustrating part is that the information is coming at investigators at the speed of light, and they can be inundated with irrelevant noise,” said Richard Kuprewicz, who by his account has investigated hundreds of pipeline incidents over the course of 20 years. “They have to filter that out of the way.”

As containment and mitigation efforts advance, nearly a dozen government agencies have become involved in an investigation that has already taken them to the Port of Oakland, where authorities spoke Wednesday to the operators of a German container ship that had been on-site at the time of the spill. The ship was allowed to continue on with its journey, however, and the ship’s owners said the vessel was no longer under scrutiny.

Kuprewicz warns that answers may take time.

“We should have an answer in a couple of months, which is about how long it takes to do the forensic analysis,” he said, which should include removing the damaged pipe from nearly 100 feet of water. “They should be able to determine with a high degree of confidence what the most likely failure mechanism was.”

Of course, determining the cause of the rupture will be easier than finding out who is responsible. “It will take more time to get to the who, than to the why,” Kuprewicz said. “The why follows the science. The who follows the rule of law.”


As of Thursday, the most probable suspect continued to be a shipping vessel that might have hit and possibly snagged the pipeline in the process of anchoring. But identifying that ship will require establishing when the pipeline was damaged. Complicating that work is the possibility that damage took place months before the pipe cracked open.

The answer to these questions is critical in not only preventing a similar spill from taking place but also in determining liability, which could possibly extend to criminal negligence.

Already a performer on the Huntington Beach boardwalk has sued the pipeline operator in federal court, claiming that the spill will harm his business and has exposed him to hazardous chemicals. The lawsuit is seeking class-action status.

On Thursday, another lawsuit filed in federal court on behalf of Laguna Beach shoreline property owners also seek class-action certification and damages for loss of enjoyment, potential lowered property values and diminished rental income.

Rebecca Ore, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach, was reluctant to give an estimated cost of the cleanup. “We’re still in the early phases of this, and responses can be a long-term effort,” she said.

But Kuprewicz anticipates this effort could “easily go into the hundreds of millions.”

“Oil spills don’t tend to be cheap affairs, and this is a high-profile oil spill with a high-profile investigation,” he said. “I’ve seen minor pipeline failures that have escalated into billions of dollars.”

Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said there is a federal liability trust that will be used to reimburse public agencies for the cost of the cleanup. It is not clear how much money is in the trust.

“We are tracking every single minute, every single supply, piece of equipment,” Foley said. “All the public agencies are working towards submitting reimbursements. I don’t have any reason to believe we won’t get reimbursed.”

Seven days into the investigation, what is known is clear: The pipeline, which is 16 inches in diameter, is nearly 18 miles long, and connects three offshore oil platforms — Ellen, Elly and Eureka — with an onshore processing plant in the Port of Long Beach.

The infrastructure is owned by Amplify Energy Corp., a publicly owned energy company headquartered in Houston. Its portfolio, according to its website, includes “mature, legacy oil and natural gas fields.”

Amplify has owned the property for nine years. It was initially developed by Shell Oil Co. in the late 1970s and went into production in January 1981. It is one of more than two dozen offshore oil platforms that are a familiar sight off the coast.

Late in the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 1, Newport Beach resident Jolie Sheppick noticed a smell, “like when they resurfaced the streets in the area and had a spill.”

But even as Sheppick and others began calling authorities, workers in Platform Elly’s control room were unaware of a problem in the pipeline until 2:30 a.m. Saturday when, according to federal regulators, they received an alert indicating low pressure.

Low-pressure alerts do not always mean a release in the line, and “it isn’t reasonable to expect an operator to shut down a line whenever they hear a low-pressure alarm,” said Kuprewicz, but “something doesn’t look right here.”

In comments this week, Martyn Willsher, who runs Amplify Energy, has not explained what warnings his company may have received or what initial actions they took.

He has said, however, that a little after 8 a.m. Saturday, workers performing a line inspection noticed a sheen in the water and “instantly” radioed back to the offshore platforms, where workers launched an incident response plan. The offshore platforms and pumping operations were “shut down immediately thereafter.”

About half an hour later, Amplify Energy notified its crisis and emergency management company and federal regulators, according to Willsher, adding, “If we were aware of something on Friday night, I promise you — we would have immediately stopped all operations.”

The initial suspect was corrosion. “Steel pipes want to corrode,” Kuprewicz said.

Even if the pipeline was damaged by a ship anchor, corrosion could have played a role in the rupture, slowly compromising the steel at the point where it was weakened or stressed, but investigators will also take into consideration other factors, independent of an anchor strike or corrosion, including a manufacturing defect at welding sites.

Given these possibilities, the role that inspections could have played in preventing the spill will come under scrutiny.

Offshore platforms and pipelines are monitored by a raft of federal regulatory agencies that are mandated to conduct periodic inspections of aging equipment. In California, their work alone focuses on more than two dozen platforms from just north of Point Conception to Huntington Beach. Some are in state waters, some are in federal waters, and all are about 40 years old.

“It’s not a robust system of oversight,” said Miyoko Saka****a, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Newly released documents from the federal Bureau of Environmental Safety and Enforcement show that the broken pipeline had been inspected every two years since 2007 by private contractors hired by Amplify Energy.

In 2019, repairs were made in three areas where pipeline deformation occurred, according to the summary report by federal investigators. “The internal inspection is acceptable and no remedial action is recommended at this time,” the bureau concluded.

But as speculation grows over the role that corrosion and lax government oversight may have played in the spill, the Joint Unified Command, overseeing the investigation, announced on Tuesday that divers and footage from remotely operated submarines discovered that a 4,000-foot section of the pipeline had been violently displaced.

“The pipeline has essentially been pulled like a bowstring,” said Willsher, describing some force that had pulled the pipe about 105 feet in an almost “semicircle.”

The suspicion that an anchor might have caught and dragged the pipeline comes at a time when disruptions in the global supply chain, due to the pandemic, have led to a fivefold increase in traffic over the last few years. The bottleneck has required many more ships to wait at anchor before entering the ports.

Not long after the spill, early analysis of satellite imagery suggested that the container ship might have crossed the pipeline after straying thousands of feet from its anchorage.

After examining the images, however, the nonprofit environmental watchdog group Skytruth said it had found no evidence of drifting.

On Wednesday, Coast Guard officials boarded the ship that was in Oakland at the time and later released it without explanation. The ship is currently in route to Mexico.

The owner of the ship, Hapag-Lloyd, was aware that some marine traffic information showed that it had moved while it was anchored, but that “seems to be wrong,” a company spokesman said. The ship’s captain has provided logs, updated hourly, showing the ship did not leave its anchorage place for several days, he said.

Tracking down the responsible ship could prove extremely difficult. Investigators haven’t always been able to find the culprit in suspected anchor strikes of underwater pipelines, or even come to a final conclusion that it was an anchor that caused damage, federal records show.

Investigators continue to look into the possibility that other ships damaged the pipeline, but some have raised the question of whether the pipeline might have moved so that its position on nautical charts was no longer accurate.

As the investigation continues, Kuprewicz advises patience. The first priority is to contain and mitigate the spill. Other answers will come in time, he said.

“The public tends to make conclusions that outpace the science,” he said. “They think they can solve this right off the bat. But there is a due process to these procedures. The rule of law applies, and this process takes a while.”

 

[sayak83]

No responsibility for the masses, who use oil to heat homes,
fuel cars, fly planes, generate electricity, & grill food?
Even socialists & communists use fossil fuels. Do you?

The technology has to be developed for alternative energy sources to be utilized. And energy companies have hindered this.

 

[Revoltingest]

The technology has to be developed for alternative energy sources to be utilized. And energy companies have hindered this.

How have they hindered it?

I see a populace that doesn't care enuf to do
much about it, especially personally.

 

[Stevicus]

Despite preparation, California pipeline operator may have taken hours to stop leak (msn.com)