California needs permanent ban on coast drilling
It happened again, to no one’s surprise. Californians were resigned decades ago to the fact that when you drill, you spill.
The latest disaster off the Orange County coast over the weekend is the last straw. Congress should pass Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s legislation and place a permanent ban on West Coast oil and natural gas drilling as part of the effort to fight climate change. The accident underscores the need to accelerate closing and decommissioning the aging oil and natural gas platforms off the California coast.
The United States will only achieve true energy dominance and security by reducing its dependence on fossil fuels.
The massive oil spill originated from a leak in a pipeline about 5 miles off the coast of Huntington Beach, spewing at least 126,000 gallons of crude oil and fouling beaches from the Huntington Beach Pier to Newport Beach. Dead birds and fish are already washing up on the shore. The cleanup is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars and make offshore areas unavailable for fishing for weeks, if not months.
The pipeline, owned by Amplify Energy, stretches 17.5 miles from the Elly oil processing platform to a Long Beach pumping station. Workers have suctioned the pipe, preventing more oil from leaking into the ocean. But the damage is significant. The oil has spread to an area the size of 13 square miles, closing beaches for a 22-mile stretch from Dana Point to Huntington Beach.
The latest spill is not the first to do significant damage in California:
• In 2015, an oil pipeline ruptured north of Santa Barbara, spilling nearly 150,000 gallons of crude oil onto Refugio State Beach.
• In 2010, as heavy fog filled the San Francisco Bay, the cargo ship Cosco Busan smacked into the Bay Bridge, dumping an estimated 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into the bay. The spill fouled 69 miles of beaches, killed an estimated 2,500 birds and cost nearly $100 million in cleanup and legal fees.
• In 1990, the American Trader oil tanker ran over its anchor and spewed more than 416,000 gallons of crude oil near Huntington Beach, killing about 3,400 birds and needing two months to clean up.
• In 1971, two Standard Oil ships, each carrying thousands of gallons of crude and refined oil, collided in the fog-enshrouded Golden Gate. The resulting 800,000 gallon spill was the largest in Bay Area history and killed an estimated 7,000 birds.
• In 1969, a well blew out in the Santa Barbara Channel, causing the thirdlargest oil spill in U.S. history. The 3 million gallon disaster created an oil slick 35 miles long, killing 3,500 birds.
California still has 23 oil and gas platforms along its coastline. They were built in the late 1960s and early 1990s. Oil platforms usually last 25-50 years. Federal and state laws require platform owners to decommission them when they are no longer productive. The era of offshore drilling needs to come to an end. The sooner oil and gas drilling is banned and platforms are decommissioned, the better for the climate, the ocean and the California coast.