LOS ANGELES — Coast Guard officials on Tuesday confirmed Los Angeles Times reporting that the agency had first been alerted to the possibility of an oil spill off the California coast on Friday evening.
Commercial divers who were hired to examine the suspected source of the leak found an area where the 17.7-mile pipeline had been displaced by about 105 feet and suffered a 13-inch split running parallel to the pipe. It is not clear what caused the damage to the pipeline, which allowed tens of thousands of gallons of crude to spill into the waters off Orange County.
Investigators said Monday that they were looking into whether a ship’s anchor caused the pipe breach. Officials did not immediately provide more information about that investigation Tuesday.
While officials acknowledged in a statement the spill may have been detected Friday, the agency said it frequently receives such alerts.
“These types of reports are common, and in many cases, the sheen reported can be natural seepage of oil or sheen that is never located. [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] satellite imagery was reported to agencies early morning reporting a possible oil anomaly,” the statement read.
Records show that satellite imagery came about 45 minutes after the Friday report and, though inconclusive, determined with “high confidence” that the miles-wide spill was oil.
Officials on Tuesday also continued frantically trying to protect ecologically sensitive shorelines. The oil has continued to move south after fouling beaches and wetlands in Huntington Beach on Sunday. While much of it remained off the coast, some did wash up in Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Dana Point, prompting officials to close the harbor and Baby Beach. State parks officials closed Bolsa Chica State Beach on Tuesday after officials observed oil in that area, which is slightly north of the city beaches.
The spill was initially estimated at about 126,000 gallons of crude, but late Monday, state and federal officials said that number could be closer to 144,000 gallons.
A map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projecting the movements of the oil spill, reviewed by The Times, indicated the greatest threat to the shore remains in the area between Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach.
Officials involved in the spill response believed that as of Saturday evening, the oil had reached San Diego County, according to materials obtained by The Times. Coast Guard officials are flying over the spill three to four times a day to map the oil’s direction and compare it with tides, currents and winds to project the potential impact to beaches to the south.
“It really is dependent on the prevailing weather conditions, but the oil continues to move in a southerly direction,” said Capt. Rebecca Ore, commander of the USCG Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach.
Ore said the oil was detected as far south as Dana Point on Monday afternoon, but it was not a large mass.
“I would characterize it as isolated ribbons of oil, or patches of oil. It’s constantly changing,” Ore said. “It’s not one large slick of oil covering this large area of miles.”
The Orange County Board of Supervisors enacted a declaration of emergency response during its meeting Tuesday, which allows the county to seek reimbursement for cleanup and other efforts from the entity responsible for the leak. Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency late Monday to help with cleanup efforts in Orange County.
Huntington Beach has been the hardest hit, with oil fouling some marshes and wetlands. Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said she took a flight over the affected area and it didn’t appear the oil was encroaching as much as previously feared into the Huntington Beach area, but it could move as far south as the Mexican border.
“We do need more resources,” Foley said Tuesday. “It looks like they have one boat doing skimming off of Laguna Beach, kind of heading toward Dana Point. However, there are threads of oil that are just sitting out there, so more resources — more skimmers — are needed. We must be all hands on deck.”
Surveys also found the spill hasn’t penetrated the Bolsa Chica wetlands. However, a significant amount of oil has seeped into Talbert Marsh, a 25-acre ecological reserve across from Huntington State Beach that is home to dozens of species of birds. County officials have set up berms to keep out additional oil.
“It’s just devastating how much oil is just settling in there,” Foley said. “That marsh was actually something that was repaired after the last oil spill, and so we’re back to ground zero for that.”
On Tuesday morning, a large yellow bulldozer pushed sand toward the mouth of the Huntington Beach Channel, creating a barrier that officials hoped would slow the oil that was floating up to the nearby wetlands. Farther up, in the underpass, cleaning crews on two boats began to replace booms that had absorbed some of the oil. Two men picked up the blackened barriers and placed them in a large translucent bag.
Sumio Uchida, 67, rode his longboard down to the beach to survey the spill’s aftermath.
“This is sad,” the longtime Huntington Beach resident said. “This is why offshore oil drilling needs to stop.”
Fourteen boats are working in the waters along the coast to recover oil before it washes ashore, according to the Coast Guard. The cleanup efforts were halted for several hours overnight because lightning from a storm made it too dangerous for crews to be on the water, officials said.
More than 4,100 gallons of oil had been removed from the water as of Monday afternoon. Officials deployed 8,700 feet of oil-containment barriers, called booms, to protect the coast, according to the Coast Guard.
On Tuesday morning, anti-pollution vessels were seen again off the coast of Huntington Beach, south Laguna Beach and Dana Point. Officials in Laguna Beach hoped the skimmers would prevent more oil from coming ashore.
“People call it the California Riviera. It’s just so beautiful,” Laguna Beach Mayor Pro Tem Sue Kempf said. “And people who live here, they’ll go and pick up trash on the beach. They’re very protective. They treat it like their own beach.”
The spill, first reported Saturday morning, originated from a pipeline running from the Port of Long Beach to an offshore oil platform known as Elly. The oil will likely continue to encroach on Orange County beaches and environmentally sensitive habitats for days, officials said.
Michelle Anderson, the county’s director of emergency management, compared the spill to the 2015 Refugio oil spill in Santa Barbara, which she said took about four months to clean up.
“This is definitely not going to be a short-term incident,” she said.
