Why is it that I get the feeling that the reason they can't sweep this one under the carpet because it is in plain view where everyone can see it? It has also happened in one of the most beautiful coastlines anywhere
Broken
Pipeline Leaks 21,000 Gallons of Oil Into Pacific Ocean Off
California Coast
A
24-hour-a-day operation is underway to clean up the 21,000 gallons of
oil that leaked into the Pacific Ocean during a central California
pipeline break.
26
November, 2014
So
far, they've raked, skimmed and vacuumed more than 6,000 gallons of
that oil from the water, but there was worse news discovered by
investigators. The 21,000 gallons of oil that went into the water may
have been just a fraction of the leakage; as many as 105,000 gallons
may have spilled from the broken pipeline, in total.
Federal
regulators continue to investigate the leak as boats towed booms into
place to corral the oil slicks from the spill that stretched 9 miles
long off the Santa Barbara coast.
The
chief executive of the company that runs the pipeline, Plains All
American Pipeline LP, was at the site of the spill Wednesday and
apologized for it.
"We
deeply, deeply regret that this incident has occurred at all,"
Chairman and CEO Greg L. Armstrong said at a news conference. "We
apologize for the damage that it's done to the wildlife and to the
environment."
Armstrong
said the company had received permission to continue cleanup
operations around the clock and vowed that they "will remain
here until everything has been restored to normal."
Crude
was flowing through the pipe at 54,600 gallons an hour at the time of
the leak Tuesday, the company said. Company officials didn't say how
long it leaked before it was discovered and shut down, or discuss the
rate at which oil escaped.
Federal
regulators from the Department of Transportation, which oversees oil
pipeline safety, investigated the leak's cause, the pipe's condition
and the potential regulatory violations.
The
24-inch pipe built in 1991 had no previous problems and was
thoroughly inspected in 2012, according to Plains. The pipe underwent
similar tests about two weeks ago, though the results had not been
analyzed yet.
The
Los Angeles Times reported that the company accumulated 175 safety
and maintenance infractions since 2006, according to federal records.
The infractions involved pump failure, equipment malfunction,
pipeline corrosion and operator error. The paper said a Plains
Pipeline spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for
comment about its regulatory record.
There
was no estimate on the cost of the cleanup or how long it might take.
A
combination of soiled beaches and pungent stench of petroleum caused
state parks officials to close Refugio State Beach and El Capitan
State Beach, both popular campgrounds west of Santa Barbara, over the
Memorial Day weekend.
Still,
tourists were drawn to pull off the Pacific Coast Highway to eye the
disaster from overlooking bluffs.
"It
smells like what they use to pave the roads," said Fan Yang, of
Indianapolis, who was hoping to find cleaner beaches in Santa
Barbara, about 20 miles away. "I'm sad for the birds — if they
lose their habitat."
The
early toll on wildlife included two oil-covered pelicans, said
spokeswoman Melinda Greene. Biologists were seen counting dead fish
and crustaceans along sandy beaches and rocky shores.
The
state Department of Fish and Wildlife closed fishing and shellfish
harvesting for a mile east and west of Refugio beach and it deployed
booms to protect the nesting and foraging habitat of the snowy plover
and the least tern, both endangered shore birds.
The
coastal area is habitat for seals, sea lions and whales, which are
now migrating north through the area.
Gov.
Jerry Brown on Wednesday night declared a state of emergency because
of the spill, a move that frees up additional state funding and
resources to help in the cleanup.
Santa
Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley said her office, along
with the state attorney general, is investigating the pipeline spill
for possible criminal prosecution or a finding of civil liability.
The
coastline was the scene of a much larger spill in 1969 — the
largest in U.S. waters at the time — that is credited with giving
rise to the American environmental movement.
Environmental
groups used the spill as a new opportunity to take a shot at fossil
fuels and remind people of the area's notoriety with oil spills.
"Big
Oil comes with big risks — from drilling to delivery," said
Bob Deans, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Santa Barbara learned that lesson over 40 years ago when
offshore drilling led to disaster."
Large
offshore rigs still dot the horizon off the coast, pumping crude to
shore and small amounts of tar from natural seepage regularly show up
on beaches. The leak occurred in a pipe that was carrying crude from
an onshore facility toward refineries further down the chain of
production.
The
oil spilled into a culvert running under a highway and into a storm
drain that emptied into the ocean.
"NATO
and the United States should change their policy because the time
when they dictate their conditions to the world has passed,"
Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Dushanbe, capital of the Central
Asian republic of Tajikistan
'Nightmare'
California oil spill damages rare coastal ecosystem
Activists
say accident is soiling Gaviota coast, a Mediterranean-climate region
of which there are only five in the world, and will be closed off for
weeks or months Pipeline Leaks 21,000 Gallons of Oil Into Pacific
Ocean Off California Coast
20
May, 2015
Cleanup
crews scrambled to contain a nine-square-mile spill on a rural
stretch of the California coastline
on Wednesday, following a pipeline break that dumped up to 105,000
gallons of crude on land and into the ocean, blackening a popular
state beach.
Darren
Palmer, the chairman and CEO of Plains All-American Pipeline, a
Houston-based company, told reporters Wednesday evening that an
estimated 21,000 gallons of crude may have reached the water. The
cause of the leak has not been identified, Palmer said, but shortly
before the accident, he said, the company had “mechanical issues”
with its pumping units.
Until
then, Palmer said, the pipeline had not malfunctioned since 1987,
when it was built to carry processed crude from processing plants on
the coast to refineries in Texas.
“We
deeply regret that this incident has occurred at all,” Palmer said.
“We apologize for the damage it has done to the environment. We
apologize to the residents and visitors for the inconvenience it has
caused, especially on this Memorial Day weekend.”
Some
of the spilled oil found its way through a highway storm drain into
the ocean near Refugio State Beach, 25 miles west of Santa Barbara.
“The
smell absolutely burned your throat, your nose, made you dizzy and
gave you a headache,” said Leslie Freeman, who runs a cattle ranch
about a quarter-mile from Refugio. “It came up the beach and the
canyon and settled around our house and barn.”
Freeman
said his daughter and granddaughter spent the night in a hotel in
Goleta, about 15 miles east of the ranch, to escape the fumes. More
than 270 workers were deployed Wednesday to comb the beaches for
injured wildlife and begin cleanup operations, US coast guard
officials said. There is no estimate yet on the number of oiled birds
and marine mammals that have been rescued.
The
Refugio spill is much smaller than the 3 million-gallon oil spill
that struck the Santa Barbara waterfront in 1969 and gave birth to
the environmental movement in the United States.
But
environmentalists said this latest accident hit hard, because it is
soiling the Gaviota coast, a rare Mediterranean-climate region where
northern and southern plants and wildlife meet. There are only five
such regions in the world, all of them located at the western edges
of continents and all of them unique for their biological diversity.
Because
it has not been urbanized, the Gaviota coast region, which stretches
from Goleta to the northern boundary of the Vandenberg air force
base, also has been viewed as the healthiest remaining coastal
ecosystem in southern California – at least, until now.
“The
Gaviota coast is a global resource that needs to be attended to with
greater respect and restraint,” said Phil McKenna, president of the
Gaviota Coast Conservancy, a nonprofit group that sought and failed
to win a national park designation for the area during the
administration of President George W Bush.
“When
I saw that first image of oil oozing out of the bluffs, it was a
nightmare.”
By
mid-afternoon, about 15 workers at Refugio in white paper suits were
throwing bags of contaminated kelp and blobs of tarry oil onto a
large pile for pickup and disposal. A brisk wind onshore wind was
blowing, and much of the oil had floated off the sand with the tide,
leaving a black ring of tarred rocks along the shore.
A
flock of pelicans was fishing in the area, raising the possibility
that the birds might get over-chilled in the cold water if their oily
feathers clumped together, said Dennis Chastain, an oil prevention
specialist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
One
of the biggest challenges, he said, will be cleaning up blackened
rocks on the cobble beach above the tidal zone. One approach is to
deluge them with water, and another, more time-consuming, is to
hand-clean them, he said. Fish and Wildlife and the Coast Guard were
leading the cleanup operations.
Several
boats and helicopters were deployed off the coast today to identify
patches of slick where a cleanup vessel could drive through, mopping
up the oil, or set out floating booms to contain the oil. Three
thousand feet of containment boom were deployed on Wednesday,
officials said.
Chastain
said he expected Refugio to remain closed through Labor Day.
The
loss of Refugio’s palm-studded campground and sandy beach for
unknown weeks or months to come will also be a blow for the surfers
who ride the waves of the protected cove, and for the paddle boarders
who cross the waters from Refugio to El Capitan state beach, a
world-class surfing spot now in the path of the oncoming spill. The
El Capitan campground and beach have been evacuated, though it is not
yet clear whether the slick has reached the beach.
“When
you’re out in the ocean anywhere along the Gaviota coast, you don’t
see cars or buildings much,” said Ken Palley, a member of the
executive committee of Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit organization
that seeks to preserve public access to the beach.
“You
are out in this pristine ocean wilderness, and you feel like you’re
going back in time. Now it’s going to be disgusting and horrible
and nasty and poisonous. It shows how poorly the oil industry
regulates itself.”
Fishermen,
though, are not so concerned. In mid-June they will begin plying the
waters of this coast a mile offshore for halibut and sea cucumber,
and they say they’re used to oil slicks. A natural oil seep lies
about a mile below the Refugio spill and trawlers regularly fish
there, blackening the sides of their boats, said Mick McCorkle,
president of the Southern California Trawlers Association, a group of
15 small trawlers.
“It
doesn’t affect fishing on the bottom at all,” he said.
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