Cleanup Crews Attack Pipeline Spill, Now 5 Miles Long

Crews attacked a five-mile-long oil slick off the Ventura County coast Saturday in the second day of efforts to contain 420 to 2,100 gallons of crude that spilled into the sea when a work boat ripped open an oil pipeline.

Working in shifts around the clock, crews aboard 11 boats unfurled hundreds of feet of floating boom to corral the slick about six miles off ecologically sensitive habitats on Anacapa Island and Mugu Lagoon on the mainland.

Unocal officials said they still could not predict if the oil that leaked from Unocal’s Platform Gina would reach land. They said they hoped to have most of the heavy oil skimmed from the surface within a few days.

“The slick appears to be moving parallel to the shore,” said Brian W.G. Marcotte, a Unocal vice president. “It all depends on where the wind and the currents take it.”

Unocal has taken responsibility for the relatively small spill that occurred about 2 p.m. Friday when a work boat severed a 10-inch pipeline that carries 1,250 barrels of oil a day from the platform to shore.

The boat was dragging a grappling hook to retrieve an anchor chain that had dropped from a buoy near the platform. The 197-foot boat snagged the pipeline about 200 yards from the platform and pulled on it until it snapped on one of the platform’s legs, Unocal officials said. Automatic sensors quickly shut off the pipeline’s pumps, preventing the escape of more oil.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service, which oversees oil leasing in federal waters, is investigating the incident. An agency spokeswoman said she would have no comment on the investigation until it is completed.

But Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who represents the area, said he was troubled that a work boat used a grappling hook in an area known to have a submerged pipeline. “I don’t think this is an issue that will go away,” he said.

But Unocal officials declined to comment on their investigation into the incident. For now, they said, they preferred to focus on removing the spill from the Santa Barbara Channel, an area known for its extensive offshore oil development and diverse sea life.

“This is a minor spill, but we have a couple of very sensitive habitats in the Channel Islands and Mugu Lagoon,” said Lt. Reed Smith of the California Department of Fish and Game. “There is going to be some damage. It just depends on how long the oil stays on the surface.”

Smith said the long, narrow slick has probably already harmed the eggs and larvae of mackerel and sardines that spawn in the channel at this time of year.

As a precaution, cleanup crews draped a series of floating booms across the mouth of Mugu Lagoon, an ecologically fragile estuary and habitat to several endangered birds, including brown pelicans, least terns and clapper rails.

Thomas W. Keeney, a senior ecologist with the Navy, said he and his colleagues have walked most of the shoreline of the surrounding Point Mugu Naval Air Station and found no oil-soaked birds. “We’re just praying that the wind stays in our favor,” Keeney said.

Friday’s spill is small compared with the tanker American Trader accident, which poured 397,000 gallons of oil off Huntington Beach in 1990, and minuscule compared with the 11 million gallons of oil dumped into Alaska’s Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez.

Previously, Unocal was responsible for the biggest oil-platform disaster in U.S. history. In 1969, a blowout at Unocal’s Platform A off Santa Barbara unleashed 77,000 barrels of crude from the ocean floor. The slick spread from the shoreline of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties to the Channel Islands.