#ECOCIDE UPDATED
Oil spill off California coast is dispersing, amount unclear
By STEFANIE DAZIO, MATTHEW BROWN and BRIAN MELLE
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LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Some of the crude oil that spilled from a pipeline into the waters off Southern California has been breaking up naturally in ocean currents, a Coast Guard official said Wednesday as authorities sought to determine the scope of the damage.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Strohmaier said some of the oil has been pushed to the south by currents. Storms earlier in the week may also have helped disperse the oil, which he said could make it more challenging to skim as it spreads out.
“Most of this oil is separating and starting to float further south,” he said while accompanying reporters aboard a boat to the scene of the spill. “The biggest problem is the uncertainty, the amount that leaked into the water. We are at this point unsure of the total amount that leaked out.”
How much oil leaked remains unclear. The pipeline operator, Amplify Energy Corp., has publicly pegged the maximum amount of the spill at 126,000 gallons (572,807 liters) of heavy crude. But the company told federal investigators with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration that initial measurements put the total only around 29,400 gallons (111,291 liters).
Birds are seen as workers in protective suits clean the contaminated beach after an oil spill in Newport Beach, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021. A major oil spill off the coast of Southern California fouled popular beaches and killed wildlife while crews scrambled Sunday, to contain the crude before it spread further into protected wetlands. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
The water and shoreline are still off limits in Huntington Beach and several other areas, but people are allowed on the sand. Beachgoers played volleyball on the Huntington Beach sand Wednesday morning as walkers and bikers passed near the city’s famed pier. A few globs of oil were visible along the shoreline but no smell remained.
Investigators have said the spill may have been caused by a ship’s anchor that hooked, dragged and tore open an underwater pipeline. Federal officials also found that the pipeline owner did not quickly shut down operations after a safety system alerted to a possible spill.
“The Coast Guard is looking into a multitude of factors that may have caused the pipe to rupture, including corrosion, pipe failure, or an anchor strike,” Strohmaier said. “We are analyzing the electric charting systems from our vessel traffic service to see what ships were anchored or moving over the affected area on Friday.”
Questions remained about the timeline of the weekend spill, which fouled beaches and a protected marshland, potentially closing them for weeks along with commercial and recreational fishing in a major hit to the local economy.
Some reports of a possible spill, a petroleum smell and an oily sheen on the waters off Huntington Beach came in Friday night but weren’t corroborated and the pipeline’s operator, Amplify Energy Corp., didn’t report a spill until the next morning, authorities said.
An alarm went off in a company control room at 2:30 a.m. Saturday that pressure had dropped in the pipeline, indicating a possible leak but Amplify waited until 6:01 a.m. to shut down the pipeline, according to preliminary findings of an investigation into the spill.
The Houston-based company took another three hours to notify the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Center for oil spills, investigators said, further slowing the response to an accident for which Amplify workers spent years preparing.
Amplify’s CEO Martyn Willsher refused to directly answer questions about the alarm when pressed on the issue by reporters Wednesday. He repeated his assertion that the company didn’t learn of the spill until a boat saw a sheen on the water at 8:09 a.m.
“We are conducting a full investigation into that to see if there’s anything that should have been noticed,” Willsher said, adding, “I’m not sure if there was a significant loss in pressure.”
He said the pipeline already was shut down by 6 a.m. Saturday, then re-started for five minutes for a “meter reading” before it was shut down again. Willsher did not say when it had been initially shut down or why.
The company’s spill-response plan calls for the immediate notification of a spill. Criminal charges have been brought in the past when a company took too long to notify federal and state officials of a spill.
On Tuesday, federal transportation investigators said the pipe was split open at a depth of about 98 feet (30 meters) and a nearly mile-long section was pulled along the sea floor, possibly by a ship’s anchor that hooked it and caused a partial tear, federal transportation investigators said.
“The pipeline has essentially been pulled like a bow string,” Willsher said. “At its widest point, it is 105 feet (32 meters) away from where it was.”
Huge cargo ships regularly cross above the pipeline as they head into the gigantic Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex. They are given coordinates where they are to anchor until unloading.
Anchored cargo ships continually move because of shifting winds and tides, and an improperly set anchor weighing 10 tons (9 metric tons) or more can drag “whatever the anchor gets fouled on,” said Steven Browne, a professor of marine transportation at California State University Maritime Academy.
Workers in protective suits walk by as dead marine life washed off on a beach after an oil spill in Newport Beach, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021. A major oil spill off the coast of Southern California fouled popular beaches and killed wildlife while crews scrambled Sunday, to contain the crude before it spread further into protected wetlands. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
There was no indication whether investigators suspect that a particular ship was involved.
“We are going to make sure that we have answers as to how this happened, and to make sure that we hold the responsible party accountable,” said Congresswoman Katie Porter, a Democrat who chairs the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee. She represents a district a few miles inland from the spill area.
Animal rescuers ashore have been pleasantly surprised to find few birds covered in oil.
During a two-hour boat tour off Huntington Beach coastline, an AP video journalist saw no visible oil. Pelicans and other sea birds floated on calm waters, and four dolphins swam by the boat.
Meanwhile, Coast Guard officials defended their decision to wait until Saturday morning to investigate a possible spill first reported Friday night — some 10 hours earlier — near a cluster of boats that were anchored off Huntington Beach.
At 2:06 a.m. Saturday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said satellite images showed the strong likelihood of an oil slick. The report was made to the National Response Center, a hazardous spill hotline staffed by the Coast Guard.
Residents in nearby Newport Beach had also complained Friday evening about a strong stench of petroleum, and police put out a notice to the public about it.
The Coast Guard was alerted to a sheen on the water by a “good Samaritan” but did not have enough corroborating evidence and was hindered by darkness and a lack of technology to seek out the spill, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Brian Penoyer told The Associated Press.
Penoyer said it was fairly common to get reports of oil sheens in a major seaport.
“In hindsight, it seems obvious, but they didn’t know that at that time,” Penoyer said.
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Associated Press writers Michael Blood and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, Michael Biesecker in Washington, and Eugene Garcia and Amy Taxin in Huntington Beach, California, contributed to this report.
Some oil from California spill breaks up in ocean currents
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Workers clean oil from the sand south of the pier in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021. A leak in an oil pipeline caused a spill off the coast of Southern California, sending about 126,000 gallons of oil into the ocean, some ending up on beaches in Orange County. (Jeff Gritchen/The Orange County Register via AP)
By STEFANIE DAZIO, MATTHEW BROWN and BRIAN MELLEY
LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Some of the crude oil that spilled from a pipeline into the waters off Southern California has been breaking up naturally in ocean currents, a Coast Guard official said Wednesday as authorities sought to determine the scope of the damage.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Strohmaier said some of the oil has been pushed to the south by currents. Storms earlier in the week may also have helped disperse the oil, which he said could make it more challenging to skim as it spreads out.
“Most of this oil is separating and starting to float further south,” he said while accompanying reporters aboard a boat to the scene of the spill. “The biggest problem is the uncertainty, the amount that leaked into the water. We are at this point unsure of the total amount that leaked out.”
The pipeline operator, Amplify Energy Corp., has publicly pegged the maximum amount of the spill at 126,000 gallons (572,807 liters) of heavy crude. But the company told federal investigators with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration that initial measurements put the total only around 29,400 gallons (111,291 liters).
The water and shoreline are still off limits in Huntington Beach and several other areas, but people are allowed on the sand. Beachgoers played volleyball on the Huntington Beach sand Wednesday morning as walkers and bikers passed near the city’s famed pier. A few globs of oil were visible along the shoreline but no smell remained.
Investigators have said the spill may have been caused by a ship’s anchor that hooked, dragged and tore open an underwater pipeline. Federal officials also found that the pipeline owner did not quickly shut down operations after a safety system alerted to a possible spill.
Questions remained about the timeline of the weekend spill, which fouled beaches and a protected marshland, potentially closing them for weeks along with commercial and recreational fishing in a major hit to the local economy.
Some reports of a possible spill, a petroleum smell and an oily sheen on the waters off Huntington Beach came in Friday night but weren’t corroborated and the pipeline’s operator, Amplify Energy Corp., didn’t report a spill until the next morning, authorities said.
An alarm went off in a company control room at 2:30 a.m. Saturday that pressure had dropped in the pipeline, indicating a possible leak but Amplify waited until 6:01 a.m. to shut down the pipeline, according to preliminary findings of an investigation into the spill.
The Houston-based company took another three hours to notify the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Center for oil spills, investigators said, further slowing the response to an accident for which Amplify workers spent years preparing.
However, Amplify CEO Martyn Willsher insisted that the company wasn’t aware of the spill until it saw a sheen on the water at 8:09 a.m.
The company’s spill-response plan calls for the immediate notification of a spill. Criminal charges have been brought in the past when a company took too long to notify federal and state officials of a spill.
On Tuesday, federal transportation investigators said the pipe was split open at a depth of about 98 feet (30 meters) and a nearly mile-long section was pulled along the sea floor, possibly by an anchor that hooked it and caused a partial tear, federal transportation investigators said.
“The pipeline has essentially been pulled like a bow string,” Willsher said. “At its widest point, it is 105 feet (32 meters) away from where it was.”
Huge cargo ships regularly cross above the pipeline as they head into the gigantic Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex. They are given coordinates where they are to anchor until unloading.
Anchored cargo ships continually move because of shifting winds and tides, and an improperly set anchor weighing 10 tons (9 metric tons) or more can drag “whatever the anchor gets fouled on,” said Steven Browne, a professor of marine transportation at California State University Maritime Academy.
There was no indication whether investigators suspect that a particular ship was involved.
“We are going to make sure that we have answers as to how this happened, and to make sure that we hold the responsible party accountable,” said Congresswoman Katie Porter, a Democrat who chairs the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee. She represents a district a few miles inland from the spill area.
During a two-hour boat tour off Huntington Beach coastline, an AP video journalist saw no visible oil. Pelicans and other sea birds floated on calm waters, and four dolphins swam by the boat.
Meanwhile, Coast Guard officials defended their decision to wait until Saturday morning to investigate a possible spill first reported Friday night — some 10 hours earlier — near a cluster of boats that were anchored off Huntington Beach.
At 2:06 a.m. Saturday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said satellite images showed the strong likelihood of an oil slick. The report was made to the National Response Center, a hazardous spill hotline staffed by the Coast Guard.
Residents in nearby Newport Beach had also complained Friday evening about a strong stench of petroleum, and police put out a notice to the public about it.
The Coast Guard was alerted to a sheen on the water by a “good Samaritan” but did not have enough corroborating evidence and was hindered by darkness and a lack of technology to seek out the spill, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Brian Penoyer told The Associated Press.
Penoyer said it was fairly common to get reports of oil sheens in a major seaport.
“In hindsight, it seems obvious, but they didn’t know that at that time,” Penoyer said.
Associated Press writers Michael Blood and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, Michael Biesecker in Washington, and Eugene Garcia and Amy Taxin in Huntington Beach, California, contributed to this report.
Delay after alarm puts California spill response in question
Amplify Energy’s emergency response plan for a major oil spill like the one it’s now dealing with in coastal Southern California depended heavily on a quick shutdown of the San Pedro Bay Pipeline if its sensors picked up a sudden loss of pressure. That’s not what happened, investigators revealed Tuesday.
After an alarm went off in a company control room at 2:30 a.m. Saturday — signaling a rupture that would spill tens of thousands of gallons of crude into the Pacific Ocean — the company waited more than three hours to shut down the pipeline, at 6:01 a.m., according to preliminary findings of an investigation into the spill.
The Houston-based company took another three hours to notify the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Response Center for oil spills, investigators said, further slowing the response to an accident for which Amplify workers spent years preparing.
“How come it took so long? That’s a fair question,” said Richard Kuprewicz, a pipeline consultant and private accident investigator from Redmond, Washington. “If you have any doubt, your action should be to shut down and close. ... Something’s not quite right here.”
Pipeline control room alarms are fairly routine and don’t always mean a leak, according to Kuprewicz and other industry experts. They can be tripped by numerous factors — from a faulty signal from a sensor along the line, to a pump that goes off line and causes a sudden pressure change. But the alarms — which can include flashing lights, sounds or both — also are supposed to trigger immediate follow-up actions to quickly ascertain if anything is wrong.
It’s uncertain why that process dragged out hours in San Pedro Bay, potentially worsening a spill that left some birds coated with oil and has stirred worries about broader environmental impacts.
The cause of the pipeline break just offshore from Los Angeles remains under investigation. Early findings point to a ship anchor possibly catching the line and dragging it across the seafloor, tearing a gash in the half-inch-thick (12.7 millimeter) steel pipe.
The timeline of the company’s response appears to contradict statements from Amplify’s CEO, Martyn Willsher, who told reporters on Monday that the company first became aware of the spill after receiving a report from a boat of a sheen in the water.
Willsher acknowledged the company’s equipment was supposed to help detect spills, then said, “we did not have any notice that there was a leak” prior to the sheen report.
In documents released Tuesday detailing the company’s actions, federal transportation officials did not comment on the time lag in shutting down the line or reveal any potential explanation that the Amplify executives may have offered.
Company representatives did not respond to emailed and telephone messages seeking comment about the delay between the alarm and the shutdown.
In August, Amplify boasted during a presentation to investors that it had “upgraded infrastructure to detect spills and other failures earlier” and in 2020 had achieved a roughly 50% reduction in spills that needed to be reported to authorities.
Before the spill, Amplify had high hopes for the Beta oil field and was pouring millions into upgrades and new drilling projects.
Problems with faulty leak detection procedures have plagued the industry for years, including during a massive 2010 oil spill that polluted 40 miles (64 kilometers) of Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. In that case, an Enbridge Inc. pipeline leaked at least 843,000 gallons (3.2 million liters) of crude over 17 hours, even as alarms kept going off in a company control room.
The company later settled pollution violations in the case for $176 million.
The accident spurred calls for more stringent leak detection rules and the installation of more automatic or remote-control shut-off valves that can quickly halt the flow of oil in a leak.
A dearth of such valves was also cited in another 2010 pipeline accident — a natural gas transmission line explosion in San Bruno, California, that left eight dead and dozens injured after the line continued burning like a massive blowtorch for almost 90 minutes before the line was shut down manually.
Federal officials began crafting new leak detection and valve rules under former President Barack Obama, but they were never finalized.
A new rule proposed last year under former President Donald Trump and now awaiting final approval would mandate more valves only for new or replaced oil pipelines, not the thousands of miles that are already in use. The change came after oil industry lobbying groups including the American Petroleum Institute said retrofitting lines with valves would cost up to $1.5 million per device.
The pending rule does not set standards for leak detections, giving companies significant leeway in how sensitive to leaks their equipment needs to be, said Bill Caram with the Pipeline Safety Trust, a Bellingham, Washington-based group that advocates for safer pipelines.
“It makes us worry for our country’s aging energy infrastructure,” Caram said. “We fear this could become a bigger and bigger issue.”
John Stoody with the Association of Oil Pipe Lines said companies and industry groups are working hard to improve leak detection technologies. Fine-tuning equipment is part of that, to make sure companies can detect even small leaks but not have to respond to false alarms.
“If you’re riddled with false alarms, people have a harder time reacting,” Stoody said.
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Associated Press writer Bernard Condon in New York contributed to this report.
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Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter: @MatthewBrownAP
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This version corrects that the spelling of the last name of Amplify Energy’s CEO is Willsher, not Willshire
California oil spill renews calls to ban offshore drilling
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California has been a leader in restricting offshore oil drilling since the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that sparked the modern environmental movement, and the latest spill off Huntington Beach is prompting fresh calls for an end to such drilling.
That’s easier said than done, even in California. While the state hasn’t issued a new lease in state water in five decades, drilling from existing platforms continues. Similarly, an effort in Congress that aims to halt new drilling in federal waters — more than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) off the coast — wouldn’t stop drilling that’s already happening.
Speaking from Huntington Beach on Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged it’s easier to resist new drilling than to wind down what already exists.
“Banning new drilling is not complicated,” he said. “The deeper question is how do you transition and still protect the workforce?”
Today, there are 19 oil and gas agreements in California’s coastal waters and 1,200 active wells. In federal waters, there are 23 oil and gas production facilities off the state’s coast.
A pipeline connected to one of those platforms in federal waters, run by Houston-based Amplify Energy, has spilled up to 126,000 gallons (572,807 liters) of heavy crude in one of the worst oil spills in recent California history.
Newsom said there is now a new sense of urgency to curb oil production, including by issuing more permits for well abandonment.
“It’s time, once and for all, to disabuse ourselves that this has to be part of our future. This is part of our past,” he said alongside other elected officials.
California remains the nation’s seventh-largest oil producing state, and winding down the state’s oil production has proved politically difficult. The industry employs more than 150,000 people and the state makes money from oil and gas leases.
Newsom highlighted the steps he’s taken to curb reliance on oil since he took office in 2019, including a plan to end oil production in the state by 2045 and stop selling new gas-powered cars by 2035. Still, his administration continues to issue new oil drilling permits off shore and on land, though in 2020 it issued more permits to close wells than to open new ones, said Jacob Roper, a spokesman for the state Department of Conservation.
Offshore, there are nearly 1,200 active wells in California waters, according to state data compiled by FracTracker Alliance. About 370 wells are idle, while nearly 1,300 have been plugged. Five permits have been granted to drill new offshore wells during Newsom’s tenure, according to the group.
Efforts to plug and decommission several state oil platforms are underway, but the process is costly and time consuming. It’s expected to cost more than $800 million to decommission wells in the Wilmington Oil Fields off the coast of Long Beach. The state has just $300 million set aside.
“It boils down to finances and priorities,” Democratic state Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell said. “I would hope that as we move forward we look at those wells ceasing to operate as soon as possible.”
California’s congressional delegation, including both Democratic senators, have introduced legislation to permanently ban new oil and gas drilling in federal waters off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington.
The bill, which lawmakers hope to include in a multitrillion-dollar social and environmental package being pushed by Democrats, would not affect existing leases that have been issued to longstanding oil platforms that were built from the late 1960s to early 1990s. Many California oil platforms like Platform Elly, where the recent spill occurred, have reached or exceeded their expected lifespan.
“As they age, these platforms become more and more fragile” and corroded from ocean water, said Deborah Sivas, professor of environmental law at Stanford Law School.
She said California operates with “cognitive dissonance” when it comes to oil by continuing to issue permits for drilling even as the state takes aggressive steps to tackle climate change.
Speaking alongside Newsom on Tuesday, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat representing parts of Orange County, said the federal government needs to do more.
“We have to come up with a plan to not only stop new drilling but to figure out how do we stop all drilling that’s going on in California,” he said.
No legislation to ban current offshore drilling is pending in Congress.
A spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association called the spill a tragedy. Amplify Energy, the owner of the platform, is not an association member. While the spill is prompting calls for more restrictions on drilling, spokesman Kevin Slagle said he hopes “we don’t resort to bans and mandates to address our energy future.”
Any proposal to further restrict drilling in California is likely to increase demand for imports from Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and other countries, Slagle said. Imports account for more than half the state’s oil use.
California’s status as an oil-producing state has long bedeviled Democratic governors, including former Gov. Jerry Brown. While known internationally for his work fighting climate change, Brown drew criticism from environmental groups for not doing enough at home to crack down on drilling.
But he acted swiftly to resist new federal drilling off California’s coast during the Trump administration, signing laws prohibiting the state from leasing new infrastructure, such as pipelines, to support federal drilling.
The Huntington Beach spill shows that regulations aimed at ensuring safe operation of offshore wells are more important than ever, environmental groups say.
“Incidents like this one really bring home the need for rigorous regulation of existing platforms″ with frequent, regularly scheduled inspections, said Irene Gutierrez, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Even when wells no longer produce oil, they often sit idle for decades before they are plugged and abandoned. The State Lands Commission, which Newsom chaired as lieutenant governor, has begun the process of decommissioning Platform Holly off the coast of Santa Barbara and the manmade Rincon Island in Ventura County, but the process is expected to take years and cost tens of millions of dollars.
Newsom said he’s proud of that work, even if it’s not happening as fast as some people would like.
Investigators find 13-inch gash in pipeline that spilled oil off California
A normally white pelican is seen covered with oil near Huntington Beach, Calif., on Monday days after a pipeline leaked more than 140,000 gallons of crude.
Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Investigators say they have found a 13-inch gash in a section of oil pipeline that's spilled almost 150,000 gallons of crude oil off the coastline in Southern California.
The 4,000-foot section of pipe had been pulled about 100 feet from its original location, leading investigators to believe it may have been hooked and dragged by a ship's anchor.
"The pipeline has essentially been pulled like a bow string," Martyn Willsher, CEO of pipeline owner Amplify Energy, told reporters Tuesday, according to CNN.
Officials haven't confirmed the presence of a ship above the spill site, but are investigating the possibility, U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Rebecca Ore said.
RELATED Damage from 126K-gallon oil spill in Southern California likely unknown for weeks
Supply chain challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have led to large numbers of container ships waiting to dock at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
"It's like taking 10 lanes of freeway traffic and moving them into five when the cargo gets here to the port," Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, told CNN.
The oil spill was reported last weekend about 5 miles off the coast of Huntington Beach when pipeline employees noticed a sheen in the water. Initial reports estimated that 126,000 gallons of crude spilled out, but the estimate has since been updated to 144,000 gallons.
RELATED 126,000-gallon oil spill leaves dead wildlife on Southern California coast
Last weekend, the pipeline wasn't shut down for more than 3 hours and the spill wasn't reported to the National Response Center for more than 6, according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Transportation and reported by USA Today.
Some reports of a petroleum smell and possible spillage were made a full day before the leak was detected.
The spill has led to some beach closures and fishing restrictions as officials worked to clean up, investigate and rescue wildlife. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Orange County board of supervisors declared an emergency to acquire federal aid.
Pipeline in California oil spill split open, dragged along ocean floor, authorities say
Leak may have been 'caused by an anchor that hooked the
pipeline,' preliminary reports suggest
The underwater pipeline that leaked more than 550,000 litres of oil into the water off Southern California was split open and apparently dragged more than 30 metres along the ocean floor, possibly by a ship's anchor, officials said Tuesday.
The segment of the pipe that was dragged was 1.2 kilometres long, and had a gash that was more than 30 centimetres wide, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
Preliminary reports suggested the failure may have been "caused by an anchor that hooked the pipeline, causing a partial tear," federal transportation investigators said. But there was no confirmation Tuesday that an anchor caused the tear.
The break in the line occurred about eight kilometres offshore at a depth of about 30 metres beneath the surface, according to the investigators. Their findings were included in an order from the Department of Transportation blocking the company that operates the pipeline from restarting it without extensive inspections and testing.
The order did not identify the source of the investigators' information, and agency officials did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Rebecca Ore said Tuesday that divers determined about 1,219 metres of the pipeline were "laterally displaced" by about 32 metres. She did not say what might have caused the displacement, but noted the pipeline had a 33-centimetre gash in it.
The pipeline is operated by Beta Offshore, a subsidiary of the Houston-based Amplify Energy Corporation. The head of Amplify said the pipe was displaced into "almost a semicircle."
"The pipeline has essentially been pulled like a bow string. And so, at its widest point, it is 105 feet away from where it was," Amplify CEO Martyn Willsher said at a news conference Tuesday.
Coast Guard's response called into question
The Coast Guard did not investigate initial reports of the spill for nearly 12 hours because it did not have enough corroborating evidence and was hindered by darkness and a lack of technology, an official told The Associated Press earlier Tuesday.
Rear Admiral Brian Penoyer acknowledged that the Coast Guard was alerted Friday night by a "Good Samaritan" that there was a sheen on the water.
Penoyer initially said the Coast Guard put out a broadcast to the many cargo and tanker ships anchored off the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, along with oil rigs, seeking more information, but did not receive any response.
At a news conference later Tuesday, Ore disputed that and said the Coast Guard did not broadcast any information to ships or oil platforms.
Penoyer said it was common to get reports of a sheen near a busy seaport. It would take 12 hours before an oil company would report the spill that officials estimated to be 572,807 litres of heavy crude.
"In hindsight, it seems obvious, but they didn't know that at that time," Penoyer said. "So putting yourself in the position of what they did know, this is a very normal process."
Two early calls about the spill came into the National Response Center (NRC), which is staffed by the Coast Guard and notifies other agencies of disasters for quick response.
The first was from an anchored ship that noticed a sheen on the water. The second came six hours later from a federal agency that said a possible oil slick was spotted on satellite imagery, according to reports by the California Office of Emergency Services.
Beaches, coastal fisheries closed
The spill was first spotted Saturday morning and since then an estimated 572,800 litres, or 3,000 barrels, of oil has leaked, forming a slick in the ocean that covered an area of about 20 square kilometres, according to officials with the town of Huntington Beach.
The spill has fouled kilometres of beaches and protected marshlands along Orange County, Calif., and crews have been scrambling to contain it and clean it up.
The beaches could remain closed for weeks or longer, a major hit to the local economy. Coastal fisheries in the area are also closed to commercial and recreational fishing.
Orange County supervisor Katrina Foley expressed concern that the company could withhold evidence. But the county's emergency manager, Michelle Anderson, reassured the board of supervisors on Tuesday that the Coast Guard was on the scene as well to make sure the probe is independent.
"It is an investigation with objective parties involved, so that we will eventually know the outcome," Anderson said.
The spill plan warned that a break in the pipeline could cause "substantial harm to the environment" and that in a worst-case scenario, 3,111 barrels of oil could be released from the pipeline.
Willsher said required agencies were notified "instantly" when the company recognized the leak was from its pipe. However, records show the spill was not reported by Amplify Energy, but by Witt O'Brien's, a crisis and emergency management firm listed on the spill response plan as the point of contact to notify the NRC.
The report said the leaking pipe had been shut off, but containment was not confirmed.
Potential criminal investigations were being pursued by the Orange County district attorney, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Coast Guard and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, officials said.
Safety advocates have pushed for years for federal rules that would strengthen oil spill detection requirements and force companies to install valves that can automatically shut down the flow of crude in case of a leak. The oil and pipeline industries have resisted such requirements because of the high cost.
California beaches hit by oil leak smell like a 'gas station'
John Fleming witnessed impact of massive underwater leak on beach habitat
A scientist who visited Southern California beaches affected by a massive oil spill Sunday said they smelled like "a gas station."
The smell "is not something you really expect at the beach," said John Fleming, a senior scientist at the U.S.-based non-profit Center for Biological Diversity.
Since Saturday morning, an estimated 572,800 litres, or 3,000 barrels, of oil has leaked, forming a slick in the ocean that covered an area of about 20 square kilometres, according to Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr.
The slick affects Huntington Beach, a city about 65 km south of Los Angeles, as well as neighbouring Newport Beach.
"We are in the midst of a potential ecological disaster," Carr said in a news conference. "Our wetlands are being degraded and portions of our coastline are now covered in oil."
The spill could mean that beaches could be closed for weeks or even months, according to Carr.
The cause of the spill is suspected to be a leak in an underwater pipeline operated by Beta Offshore, a subsidiary of the Houston-based Amplify Energy Corporation.
Here is part of Fleming's conversation with As It Happens host Carol Off.
John, can you describe what it was like to be on the beach yesterday?
Walking out to the beach, you get this smell of oil. You know, like imagine a gas station. It really smelled a lot like that, because that's essentially the same thing we're talking about.
And then walking along the beach, you can see, you know, where the water has come in and receded because what's left behind are these kind of like ribbons of oil and like, patches of oil in various places.
And you just see the birds ... interspersed with the oil, kind of walking among it and, you know, going about their regular activities, of course not realizing how toxic ... oil can be to bird species.
How likely is it that those birds can survive?
I will say that those birds were not, you know, covered in oil, which is when you will really potentially see some harmful effects ... because a bird that's covered in oil can't fly. It can't clean itself. It can't regulate its temperature even, which can lead to issues like hypothermia and death.
And there have been some reports of birds that have been covered in oil that have been [found] with ... some deaths and some, you know, treatment essentially. I didn't observe that myself when I was there yesterday, but there have been reports of that occurring.
And as you walked along the beach, how far and wide did you see this? What was it like to actually just walk by the water?
It's been reported that it's extending pretty much from Huntington Beach to Newport Beach, which is maybe about five miles [8 km] separation, you know, along the coast. But further down the coast, there's Laguna Beach, which is maybe 15 miles [24 km] from Huntington Beach, and they have closed their beaches. So they're at least expecting the potential of this to impact them, also.
What did you see on your feet?
I was somewhat prepared for this. I did wear old shoes, but they were completely covered underneath in tar by the end of my walk. So, you know, completely ruined.
What's your sense, given the size of this 100,000 gallons of oil that's estimated to have leaked, how extensive will the damage be to the beach, to the wildlife, to the ecosystem there?
There's this marsh in the area called Talbert Marsh, which is a wetland area... and wetlands are really hotspots for biodiversity.
Oil has seeped into that area as well, which they've been working on for, you know, at least the last 30 years trying to restore this area as a wetland. And there are 90 unique species of birds there and other wildlife. And ... they are expecting significant ecological damage. To what extent depends on, you know, how quickly this can be cleaned up and controlled and making certain that the pipeline that's responsible for this is plugged and not still seeping oil.
Every minute in this kind of situation counts, so if they would have started acting days earlier ... who knows how much you could have reduced the amount.- John Fleming, Center for Biological Diversity
There are people ... who were saying they first detected the smell that you described and other signs of the oil as early as Friday night on the beach. And so how long was it before there was a shutdown of the pipeline, before it was actually considered to be the emergency that obviously it is?
Correct, so people started reporting on Friday. People started observing oil in the water on Saturday. By latest reports, they started really addressing the issue maybe, Saturday night into Sunday, and now it's reported that they have addressed the issue or kind of basically sucked the oil that was in the pipeline out and hopefully [stopped] the leakage. But I haven't heard clear confirmation of that. But as of yesterday, they were actively addressing it.
If they had sounded the alarm as early as Friday night or early Saturday morning, how much more could this oil have been contained?
Every minute in this kind of situation counts, so if they would have started acting days earlier ... who knows how much you could have reduced the amount. Right now we're talking about ... almost 130,000 gallons of oil. And at this point, they've only cleaned up maybe about 3,000 gallons over the last few days. So, you know, there's a long way to go if you really want to clean up what needs to be cleaned up.
This is such an extraordinary stretch of the California coast, and so are there renewed questions about why there [are these] offshore oil facilities on the coast of California?
Our beaches, you know, are a source of recreation. They're economically useful with fisheries which ... have had to be closed down. And I think it does warrant and it is leading to more conversation about why we're continuing to have this old infrastructure in place when it has led to these kinds of accidents. There was a similar spill in 2015 along the Santa Barbara coast, which is also very beautiful.
[That] led to devastating ecological impacts. And now we're looking at the same thing here. So if we want to, you know, maintain our pristine beaches and keep that image of what California is, that's really at odds with California's fossil fuel production.
Written by Andrea Bellemare with files from Reuters and Associated Press. Produced by Niza Lyapa Nondo. Q&A edited for length and clarity.
