OC Oil Spill Fouls Wildlife: 'Potential Ecologic Disaster'

NEWPORT BEACH, CA — Crews were scrambling to contain a 126,000-gallon oil spill Sunday, which closed nearly four miles of coastline and inflicted major ecological damage to the waters between Huntington Beach and Newport Beach this weekend, officials said Sunday. The spill could keep beaches closed for weeks or even months.

The crude emanated from a facility operated by Beta Offshore about five miles off the coast and was likely caused by a pipeline leak.

Spanning about 5.8 nautical miles, the spill forced authorities to cancel the final day of the Pacific Airshow, which drew about 1.5 million people on Saturday. It also spurred the closure of popular beaches and ocean access between the Huntington Beach Pier to the Santa Ana River jetty, Huntington Beach city officials said in a statement Sunday.

On Sunday morning, U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel urged President Joe Biden to issue a Major Disaster Declaration to aid Orange County.

"Officials are already responding to protect sea life. Dead fish and birds are already being reported on beaches and shorelines," she wrote in a letter to Biden. "I have serious concerns about the environmental impacts of the spill and applaud the workers who are doing their best to prevent the oil from hitting sensitive wetlands."

The U.S. Coast Guard responded to the spill on Saturday, which was reported around 9 a.m. and drew a response from all levels of government, Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr said Saturday. A unified command was established to handle the environmental crisis.

"The city fully acknowledges the gravity of the decision to cancel the final day of the iconic Pacific Airshow, and the disappointment that this decision will cause," Huntington Beach officials said in a statement. "However, the need for prompt and intensive intervention efforts requires complete and unfettered access to the marine environment."

Some of the toxic oil reached parts of the shoreline and was impacting the protected Talbert Marshlands and the Santa Ana River Trail, according to Carr. Officials were also scrapping to keep the spill from inflicting damage to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve and Huntington Beach Wetlands.

State Sen. Dave Min confirmed Sunday morning that the spill had reached Huntington Beach's wetlands.

Unfortunately, the oil spill has reached our wetlands in Huntington Beach, home of many endangered species. This is clearly an environmental catastrophe.
— Dave Min (@SenDaveMin) October" class="redactor-linkify-object">https://twitter.com/SenDaveMin... 3, 2021

The spill is a "potential ecological disaster," Carr said.

Access to affected beaches was restricted Sunday morning so officials could continue efforts to contain the crude, said Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, who represents the impacted cities of Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and Seal Beach.

The waters were deemed toxic by health officials and residents were urged not to fish, swim, surf or exercise near the impacted beaches amid the threat of potential health hazards.

The unified command said the public was being asked to avoid any oiled areas. Trained spill response contractors were cleaning up the disaster. "Public volunteers are not needed and could hinder response efforts," they said.

Beginning Sunday afternoon, a team that delivered more than 80,000 restaurant meals to health care professionals, front-line workers and vulnerable seniors during the coronavirus pandemic was set to offer free meals to front-line workers responding to the massive oil spill.

The Coast Guard was investigating exactly how the spill happened. The most current information indicates the leak has not been completely stopped but preliminary patching was completed to repair the oil spill site and repair efforts were ongoing Sunday.

"Workers moved to shut down the pipeline and used pressurized equipment to retrieve as much oil as possible soon after the incident was reported at 12:18 p.m.," Kate Conrad of Beta Offshore told the Los Angeles Times.

Foley said the spill has already killed some fish and birds.

"Significant ecological impacts in HB. Oil has washed up now onto the HB beachfront. We've started to find dead birds & fish washing up on the shore," Foley tweeted at 12:48 a.m. She added that the damage from the spill could be irreversible, calling the beaches and marshlands "part of our heritage" that draw countless numbers of people to the shore.

Foley told KTLA5 that she was on a call Sunday morning with the mayor and city manager of Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, along with the Orange County Sheriff's Department Harbor Patrol and the coordinators for the incident management team.

She said the oil had not made it to Newport Beach yet, but "softball-size clumps" of oil were seen on the Huntington Beach shoreline.

Foley added that Newport Beach Mayor Brad Avery, an avid boater, was on his way back from a trip to Catalina Island and navigated through the spill, spotting dolphins swimming through the oil.

An estimated 3,400 birds were killed when the American Trader oil tanker ran over its anchor and punctured its hull on February 7, 1990 spilling an estimated 416,600 gallons of crude oil off the coast of Huntington Beach, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife website.

As a result of the spill, the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center was established on March 31, 1998 at 21900 Pacific Coast Highway to help injured and orphaned wildlife including oil-soiled birds. A makeshift facility at that site treated birds injured in the American Trader spill in 1990, according to the center's website.

The City News Service and Patch editor Kat Schuster contributed to this report.