Workers clean up oil spill on Calif. beaches by hand
GOLETA, Calif.—Along a stretch of beach heavily marred by a crude oil spill, workers in hard hats and white protective suits use wire brushes and putty knives to scrape the black liquid off cobblestones and cliff faces.
The painstaking task at Refugio State Beach marks a new front in the cleanup after an underground pipeline leaked last month and released up to 101,000 gallons of oil, about 21,000 gallons of which flowed into a storm drain, sullied the beach and washed out to sea. Because the region is home to threatened shorebirds and cultural resources, a decision was made early on to clean oil-stained beaches the old-fashioned way by using hand tools instead of heavy equipment or chemicals. Toll being tallied
The environmental toll from the largest coastal spill in California in 25 years is still being tallied. Progress has been made in corralling the slick in the ocean and removing flecks of oil on sandy beaches.
Scrubbing rocks by hand will take time, however. “It’s a very labor-intensive process, but that’s where we’re at now,” Carl Childs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of several agencies involved in the cleanup, said recently.
There’s no timetable for when the cleanup will end. The effort so far has cost at least $65 million, which is being paid for by Texasbased Plains All American Pipeline. A heavily cor- roded section of Plains’ 10mile pipeline that moves oil from offshore rigs to inland refineries ruptured on May 19, causing two state beaches to close and prompting a fishing ban. One of the beaches, El Capitan State Beach, is set to reopen next week.
The spill blackened a section of the Santa Barbara County coastline that was also fouled during the 1969 offshore oil-platform blowout that spewed an estimated three million gallons of crude, killing thousands of birds and other animals.
Cleanup techniques have evolved since the 1969 disaster that helped usher in a new era of conservation. Back then, crews used straw to soak up oily sand. That’s no longer done because straw is hard to pick up and removing too much sand can harm a beach.
In the latest spill, workers shoveled tar balls and contaminated sand into plastic bags that were then carried away for disposal. They had to be careful not to disturb populations of western snowy plovers that were in the middle of their breeding season. Significant work ahead
“We’re more concerned about the impact of the cleanup doing more injury than the oil did originally,” said Kim McCleneghan of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, who responded to both spills.
About 91 percent of 97 miles of coastline — mostly sandy beaches — surveyed by teams of experts from various federal and state agencies has been given the all-clear.
Significant work remains to clean oil-covered cobblestones and boulders dotting beaches. Workers scrape rocks until an oil stain remains. That can’t be scrubbed off and must wear away naturally with time, McCleneghan said. Natural seeps, too
Once the expert teams are satisfied with the cleanliness of a beach or stone, monitoring continues to make sure there’s no setback.
Santa Barbara County is home to one of the largest naturally occurring oil seeps in the world where thousands of gallons of oil ooze from cracks in the seafloor every day.
The natural seeps generally flow at a low rate unlike significant accidental spills, which release large volumes of oil at once.
Crews are removing oil no matter if it came from the pipeline or if it occurred naturally, said Wade Bryant, senior environmental scientist at CK Associates, an environmental consulting group.