July 30--Authorities have not been able to find the source of a three-mile-wide oil sheen off the Santa Barbara County coast but expect it will naturally dissipate, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A coast guard team that took samples of the oil said it was too thin on the surface to be gathered by conventional methods, USCG Petty Officer Andrea Anderson said.
The sheen was spread across an area three miles wide and one mile long and is thinner than a coat of paint on a wall, Anderson said.
The oil was first spotted by a couple of kayakers about 1,000 feet off Goleta Beach about 10:45 a.m., the Santa Barbara County Fire Department said. Photos broadcast by local media showed the men's legs and kayaks covered in the black and brown gooey substance.
But authorities still don't know where the oil is coming from.
The sheen was seen floating near an oil platform owned by Venoco Inc., which shut down that platform in May and flushed out the pipeline of any oil and refilled it with sea water, a company official said Wednesday.
The Coast Guard is continuing to explore potential sources for the sheen, including natural seepage or if it's remnants from the May 19 Plains Pipeline rupture that closed Refugio State Beach.
That spill released an estimated 101,000 gallons of crude along the Gaviota coast, with tens of thousands of gallons estimated to have made it into the ocean.
The beach remained open despite the sheen, officials said. The Coast Guard will analyze the oil and compare it with samples from the Refugio spill and natural seepage points in the area to see if there's a match.
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UPDATES
4:30 p.m.: This update adds that authorities are still searching for the source of the spill.
3:32 p.m.: This post has been updated throughout with more details.
The story was first published at 12:30 p.m.
