The Santa Barbara oil spill occurred in January and February 1969 in the Santa Barbara Canal, near the town of Santa Barbara in Southern California. It was the largest oil spill in US waters at the time, and now ranks third after the Horizon Deepwater 2010 and 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. It remains the largest oil spill ever in California waters.
The source of the spill was an explosion on January 28, 1969, 6 miles (10 km) from the beach at Union Oil's Platform A at the Offshore Oil Field Offshore. Within ten days, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels (13,000 to 16,000 m 3 ) of crude oil spill over to the Channel and to the coast of Santa Barbara County in Southern California, littering the coastline from Goleta to Ventura and the north coast from four northern Channel Islands. The spill has a significant impact on marine life in the Strait, killing about 3,500 seabirds, as well as marine animals such as dolphins, sea elephants, and sea lions. The public outcry generated by the spill, which gets the leading media coverage in the United States, generates a lot of environmental legislation in the next few years, the law that forms the legal and regulatory framework for the modern environmental movement in the US.
Video 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
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Due to the abundance of oil in layers of thick sedimentary rock beneath the Santa Barbara Canal, this region has been an attractive resource for the petroleum industry for over a hundred years. The southern coast of Santa Barbara County is the world's first offshore oil drilling site, which takes place from the wharf at Summerland Oil Field in 1896, just 6 miles (10 km) from the spill site. The economic boom accompanied the development of the Summerland field, which turned the Summerland spiritualist community into an oil city in just a few years.
The development of oil in the Strait and adjacent coastline is controversial even from the earliest days, as at the end of the 19th century the city began to establish itself as a health resort and tourist destination with dramatic natural scenery, unspoiled beaches, and a climate that perfect. In the late 1890s, as the Summerland field began to grow much closer to the city of Santa Barbara, a midnight guard crowd led by local newspaper publisher Reginald Fernald knocked down one of the more unsightly rigs that were set up at Miramar Beach itself (in the year 2010 luxury hotel location). In 1927, the discovery of oil west of Santa Barbara led to the development of Ellwood Oil Field. This caused the city to be fenced in the east and west by the oil fields, the new ones being the gold mines and the endless Summerland fields, largely abandoned, uninhabited trash. In 1929, Mesa Oil Field was found within the city itself, on a cliff adjacent to the current Santa Barbara City College. Housing construction around the Mesa field was stalled, as oil gave money easier and faster to land developers. Oil cranes sprout on the hilltop in easy view of the harbor, in many of the small towns originally intended for homes. While local vocal protests, they failed to shut down the development of oil, because there were city regulations at that time that specifically allowed drilling in Mesa. Oil cranes only go when production in the small Mesa field suddenly declines and ends in the late 1930s.
The technological upgrades gradually allow for further and further drilling from shore, and by the mid-20th century drilling is underway near Seal Beach, Long Beach, and in other areas on the coast of Southern California from artificial islands built in shallow waters close to beach. Closer to the location of the oil spill, the first drilling island was built in 1958 by Richfield Oil Company. His name is Richfield Island, now Rincon Island, it was built in 45 feet (14 m) of water near Punta Gorda, between Carpinteria and Ventura, to exploit offshore portions of Rincon Oil Field; The island, now owned by Greka Energy, remains in active production.
In the Straits of Santa Barbara, geologists recognize that the anticlinal tendency that holds the highly productive Rincon and Ventura Oil Fields does not end up on the shoreline, but extends below the Channel. Oil seekers are looking for ways to dig deeper into the water. Seismic testing under Channels began shortly after the Second World War, in an effort to find suspected oil reservoirs under the ocean floor. The testing is noisy and disorganized; blast shook windows, cracked cast, and filled the beach with dead fish; local residents as well as the Santa Barbara News-Press against the practice, which continues, but after delays and under tighter control. But testing has uncovered what oil geologists suspect, and residents worry: the possibility of a large exploitable reservoir of oil reserves in relatively shallow waters, about 200 meters (60 m), within reach of the development of marine drilling technology.
A series of legal and legislative acts, however, delayed oil platform construction and drilling until the mid-1960s, when the Federal and State governments fought for submerged land tenure. Congress passed the Soaked Soil Law in 1953, which granted to all land states within 3 nautical miles (6 km) of beaches, known as tidelands. After two years more at loggerheads with state legislatures, Santa Barbara arrived in compromise with oil companies, creating zones without drilling on a 16 mile (26 km) long and 3 mile (5 km) wide Channel adjacent to the city of Santa Barbara. However, several major oilfields were found in state waters on both sides of this zone, and the State was awarded rents in this field beginning in 1957. The development of these resources began, with the first offshore oil platform - Hazel - built in 1957. Platform Hilda, adjacent to Hazel, was founded in 1960. Both platforms tapped the Summerland Offshore Oil Field, and were easily seen from Santa Barbara on a sunny day. The Holly Foundation, offshore from Ellwood Oil Field about 15 miles (24 km) west of Santa Barbara, was conquered in 1965.
Rental development in federal waters is next. When the technology was available, and after the Channel seismic survey had revealed that oil might be there, the federal government placed part of the Santa Barbara Channel beyond the 3 mile (5 km) limiting limits for rent. This is possible because the decision of the Supreme Court of 1965 finally resolved competing claims on submerged land beyond the 3 mile (5 km) limit, giving it to the federal government. The first rental sale took place on December 15, 1966, following notification of future sales in the Federal Register unnoticed by local officials. A consortium of oil companies, including Phillips, Continental, and Cities Service Oil Company, was awarded the first lease after paying more than $ 21 million for the right to drill about 3 square miles (8 km 2 ) from the ocean floor in Carpinteria Offshore Oil Field. Rig three companies thrown - Hogan Base - is the first oil platform off the coast of California in Federal waters. It began operating on September 1, 1967. On February 6, 1968, a total of 72 rents rose to bid. The partnership between Union Oil, Gulf Oil, Texaco, and Mobil gained the right to lease 241 in Dos Cuadras offshore oil field. Their first rental rig, Platform A, went into position on September 14, 1968, and began drilling.
Local hostility to the oil industry had grown during the period 1966 to 1968, despite the assurances from the oil industry that it could operate safely. On June 7, 1968, 2,000 US gallons (8 m 3 ) crude oil spilled into the ocean from the new Phillips Hogan Platform, regardless of the oil company's assurances that such a thing would not happen, and the certainty of Stewart L. Udall, Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs; and in November, a local voting ballot succeeded in preventing the construction of a groundwater facility in Carpinteria.
Maps 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
Oil spill
Explosion on Platform A
Platform A is positioned at 188 feet (57 m) deep, 5.8 miles (9 km) from the beach at Summerland. That's 57 slots for the well from which it can drill directed into the oil reservoir from different angles. At the time of the spill, it was one of twelve existing platforms in California waters, and one of two operated by Union Oil in the Dos Cuadras field. Four oil wells have been drilled from the new platform, though not yet put into production. Working on the fifth is in progress.
On the morning of January 28, 1969, the fifth well drilling worker, A-21, reached the final depth of 3,479 feet (1,060 m), reaching this depth in just 14 days. From this depth, only the top 239 feet (73 m) has been equipped with steel conductor casing; the rest should be equipped with one time the drill out. After the workers pulled the drill out, with great difficulty, the huge spout of oil, gas, and drill mud burst into the air into the rig, sprinkling men with dirt; some of them tried to disrupt blowout prevention into the pipe, but against the pressure of more than 1,000 pounds per square inch (7 MPa), this proved impossible; all workers except those involved in the evacuation attempt, due to the explosion hazard of abundant natural gas being blown out of the pit; Finally, the workers tried the last method, dropping the remaining drill pipe - almost 0.5 miles (800 m) long - into the hole, and then smashing the top of the well pipe from the sides with a pair of "blind sheep", the blocks the giant steel was slammed along with enough force to stop anything from escaping from the well. It took thirteen minutes from the start of the explosion until the time the ram was activated. Only then did the workers on both the rig and on the boats nearby see an increase in bubbles at sea level hundreds of meters from the rig. Placing a well at the top has failed to stop the explosion, which is now tearing the ocean floor in some places.
Typically, offshore wells will be constructed with a minimum conductor casing of 300 feet (91 m), as required by federal regulations at the time, as well as about 870 feet (270 m) of secondary inner steel tubes known as surface casing. These two protective sheaths are intended to prevent bursts of high-pressure gas out from the side of the wellbore into and through adjacent geological formations. In Well A-21, this is exactly what happened. Since there is no casing under 238 feet (73 m) sufficient to stop the enormous gas pressure, once the well is plugged in the rig, oil and gas leave the wellbore, rip right through the soft rocks on the floor of the Santa Barbara Channel, and spew oil and large amounts of gas to the surface of the water where a thick layer of boiling oil quickly begins to grow and spread.
Spill extension
Disturbances at the surface of the ocean, which began to emerge just 14 minutes after the explosion, expanded over the next 24 hours. The biggest one is a dramatic boil about 800 feet (200 m) east of the platform; Other smaller disturbances damage the ocean surface about 300 feet (100 m) west of the platform, and some smaller bubble areas can be observed around the platform itself. Even after the well was plugged into the platform with drilling mud over the next week, it continued to boil. The researchers then decided that oil and gas appeared uncontrollably through five separate tears on the ocean floor.
The first announcement of a potential disaster was made by Don Craggs, regional Union Oil supervisor for Lieutenant George Brown of the Coast Guard, about two and a half hours after the explosion. He told Brown that a well had broken but no oil came out. Craggs declined the offer of help, indicating that the situation was under control.
The seriousness of the spill became clear the next morning, as the Coast Guard helicopters brought Brown along with the State Fish and Game Warden on the platform, where they could see a neat center extending several miles east, west and south. of the platform. They estimate a total of 75 square miles (200 km 2 ) covered by oil at 8 am, less than 24 hours after the explosion. An anonymous worker on the drill rig called Santa Barbara News-Press about the explosion, and the newspaper immediately received confirmation from Union Oil headquarters in Los Angeles. The story is out. The Vice-President of the Petroleum Union, John Fraser, assured journalists and local officials that the spill was small, with a diameter of 1,000 to 3,000 feet (300 to 900 m), and the well would be quickly controlled; In addition, it gives an estimated 5,000 gallon US spillage (19 m 3 ) per day. Subsequent estimates put the spill rate in the first days of approximately 210,000 US gallons (790 m 3 ).
Santa Barbara is experiencing a stormy winter, with a massive flooding that occurred on January 25, just three days before the explosion. A large amount of fresh water still flows offshore from the local stream, flowing south and southwest around the rig. Combined with the usual north-western winds typical of the area between storm systems, this encourages the widespread extinction of oil from the shore, and it seems for several days that Santa Barbara beach will be spared. However, another major storm system affected the region on Feb. 4, with wind moving around the compass clockwise from southeast to west; this pushes the slick oil to the north to the port of Santa Barbara and to all the southern beaches of Santa Barbara County and northwest of Ventura County. Booms have been placed around harbors and beaches, but big waves in storms, and oils up to 8 inches (200 mm) deep in the boom in the afternoon on the 4th. That night, the chirp failed miserably, breaking under storm and morning attacks the entire harbor, containing about 800 boats, several inches in fresh crude oil, and all the boats were blackened. Residents were evacuated, due to the risk of explosions from abundant hydrocarbon vapors, and both oil contractors and Coast Guard began using chemical dispersants on oil near the coast.
On the morning of February 5, residents from all coastal zones awakened with the smell of crude oil, and a blackened beach scene, sprinkled with dead and dead birds. The sound of the waves breaks down instantaneously by a thick layer of oil, which accumulates on the beach in some places to a depth of 6 inches (150 mm). Residents visited the beach and watched in horror. Robert Olney Easton recounts a seaside encounter on February 5 between Dick Smith and a high school student Kathy Morales:
After high school, Kathy Morales descended to the sand dune at the edge of the breakwater. It was not a sandbar he knew. When Dick Smith from News-Press found him crying. Smith saw the reason. Nearby, on the sand, a dying lion is having a seizure, covered from head to foot with sticky black crude oil.
Tears streamed down her face when she witnessed the death of a lion. "You want to talk about The Establishment?" he asked. "This is my life - here I come here all the time to watch the sea and the birds and the animals I can not think of coming here again for a walk again I can not think of someday bringing my children here to watch and play.I do not know now, "he said, with tears running down his cheeks," if it will be the same again, and no one can tell me. "
Media coverage and public feedback
Media coverage of the spill was intense from the moment the oil reached the shore. Spill made headlines in many morning papers on February 5, also received extensive coverage on radio and television. The same morning, the US Senate subcommittee interviewed local officials and Fred Hartley, Union Oil president, about the disaster. Three major television networks were there along with more than 50 journalists, the largest number of media voters for each Senate subcommittee meeting since the Foreign Relations Committee addressed the Vietnam War. During the meeting, local officials made their case that the Federal government had a conflict of interest, because they made money from the same drilling that was mandated to monitor and regulate. Hartley defended the Union's records and denied that the incident was a disaster: "I do not like to call it a disaster, because there are no human fatalities, I am amazed at the publicity of losing some birds." The most controversial, offshore drilling operations - all stopped immediately on February 3, with the immediate request of Secretary Walter Hickel Interior, pending "re-evaluation and full reassessment of the situation" - has resumed after just a few hours of rest, long enough for a meeting closed between representatives of oil companies and Ministry of Home Affairs officials. Local officials, not invited to meetings, are furious that "full re-evaluation and reassessment" can happen in a short time, and in meetings that do not involve them; The fierce exchange was covered on national television, along with the gloomy footage of thousands of dying birds on the sandy beaches of Santa Barbara, and the spontaneous efforts of hundreds of civilian volunteers to pile the straw on oil, rub stones with detergents, and struggle to save some less greasy birds.
As people watched the news spill on television, the hasty volunteers gathered to clean up the oil in whatever way they could. They handed out enormous straw piles, spread them on the oiled shore, and then piled them into disposable piles. Other workers use steam to clean oil from large stones, in the process of boiling marine life that relies on rocks like shells. Airplanes dropped chemical dispersants to help break down the oil, even though the chemicals themselves are toxic to wildlife. Bulldozers push contaminated sand into piles for disposal outside the home. The civilian volunteers saved many drowsy birds by taking them to many rescue facilities put together during the first days, but even after saving the bird survival rate only about 12 percent. The first dead dolphins are found, the hole is blocked by oil. Offshore, ships tapped oil from the sea to a holding tank, but as soon as they brushed it off, new oil came in from the south.
Late on February 6, the day after the spill was stranded, President Richard Nixon announced the suspension of drilling, as well as production, in the federal waters of Santa Barbara Channel, with solitary exceptions from the aid well drilled to cut the bursting borehole. Still the spill continues to spew from the cracks in the seabed, not diminished, and by noon on 7 February a $ 1.3 billion class action suit has been filed against Union Oil and their partners on Platform A. On the platform itself, the workers work continuously to try. to kill his well. They make their last effort day and night, pumping 13,000 barrels (2,100 m 3 ) from the heaviest drilling mud available to the well with pressure of thousands of pounds per square inch. They almost ran out of mud supply when oil and gas boiling from the ocean began to slow, and at 8:00 pm. it stopped. Delivering the coup de grÃÆ'Â ¢ ce, the crew crashed over 1,000 sacks of concrete into the well. A-21 will not leak again. Approximately 2 million US gallons (8,000 m 3 ) oil has spilled into the sea at this point; but there is still more to come.
Continuation of the spill
Five days after the workers killed Well A-21, on February 12, a Commercial Fisheries research vessel studying the dissolved oxygen levels in the water made an unpleasant discovery: from the seafloor itself, three new gas and oil boils emerged from their respective fractions. about ten yards, and the bigger again accumulated at sea level. Again, anonymous phone calls from rig workers reminded Santa Barbara News-Press of the existence of a new oil spill from a well-suspected dead - only now that oil is coming from the ocean floor, seeping from somewhere other than the drill hole filled. The public anger reaches new heights: especially annoying is that the civilians who have found the problem again, and the oil company only recognizes its existence later.
This time the problem needs to be solved on the ocean floor. The Union put a large steel cap on most of the leaky areas, but leaks continued from other nearby locations. The company estimates leakage rates of up to 4,000 US gallons (15 m 3 ) per day. The federal government approved the reopening of several wells to try to intercept the oil beneath the seabed, and even re-open the A-21; no method works. The next measure involves pumping oil at the maximum level of all five wells on Platform A, on the theory that such actions will reduce reservoir pressure and thus leakage rates, but this only increases the rate at which oil spews out leases in the oceans. floor. Meanwhile, the cleansing continues with a setback, as large waves from new oil spills contaminate some of the cleared beaches, and oil from spills reaches as far as Pismo Beach in San Luis Obispo County, Catalina Island and Silver Strand Beach in San Diego. Despite efforts by the Union to cement a gap in the seabed, the leaks continued, with a leak near one of the platform legs dominating on February 23. At the end of the month, the flow has decreased, but oil is still seeping, at a reduced rate, from the eastern and western crevices of the platform. Leakage continues at a level of about 30 barrels (4.8 m 3 ) a day, decreases but never completely stops, reaching a stable leak rate of between 5 to 10 barrels (0.79 to 1.59 m 3 ) one day in May and June 1969, a leakage rate that persisted at least until 1970. One last spill occurred on Platform A: the release of about 400 barrels (64 m 3 ) between December 15 and 20, 1969, from the pipe break.
Total clearance time for most beaches is about 45 days after the initial spill, although tar clumps continue to drift ashore due to high seepage rates, and larger fillings come ashore during the next spill. Most beaches are open to the public on June 1, though some rocky areas on the beach are not cleared until about August 15th. However, oil continues to pool and clear the shore; on August 26, the harbor was filled with oil so once again had to be closed, with a cleaning crew spreading the straw from the boat to another group of oil, as they had done six months earlier. Indeed, oil from the spill survived in the oceans until 1970, with many areas of crude oil still being observed. Because the spill occurs during hurricane season, when beach sand is at its lowest level (restocking during normal spring and summer), one fear is that the oily sand areas will be revealed during the next winter; But this is not the case.
President Nixon's Visit; further oil development
On March 21, President Nixon came to Santa Barbara to see the spill and cleansing for himself. Arriving at the Mugu Point Naval Air Station, he then took a helicopter tour of Santa Barbara Channel, Platform A, and the beach that had been washed, partially cleaned. He landed in Santa Barbara and talked with the villagers, promising to improve the handling of environmental problems, telling the crowd, "... the Santa Barbara incident has touched the conscience of the American people." He also mentioned that he would consider stopping all offshore drilling, and told reporters that the Ministry of Internal Affairs had expanded the former buffer zone on the Channel with an additional 34,000 hectares (140 km 2 ), and changed the zone the previous buffer becomes a permanent ecological reserve. However, on April 1, the ban was lifted, and drilling was allowed to continue with five rentals on the channel, under strict supervision. The anger of the local population increased after this reversal.
After a series of unsuccessful struggles in court to prevent further oil development in the Channels, the Home Department gave the green light on Aug. 15 to Sun Oil to build their Landhouse Platform adjacent to Union's Platform A. Protesters harassed the convoy carrying platforms along the way from the Oakland shipyard, down the beach, and into the Channel. Get the Oil Out! (GOO) held a fish-in boat and even a fishing helicopter (unsuccessfully) at the planned platform site, a mile east of Platform A. They refused to move until the Supreme Court responded to their appeal. Then the crane lifting platform of the barge loosened the transfer of platforms, and the Hillhouse Platform flopped over the water, foot-up, about two hundred yards from the demonstrators fleet. While this was going on, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal, allowing Sun Oil to continue, even though their platforms floated upside down - an unreasonable and unpleasant sight for locals hoping that the spill may make the oil industry crash less. On November 26th, Hillhouse was installed properly, and Platform C, the last platform to be built from four on the Dos Cuadras field, rose in 1977.
Consequences
Environmental effects
The environmental impact of the spill was immediate and dramatic. At least 3,686 birds died - those counted; an unknown number of dead unseen. Some marine mammals, such as sea lions and sea elephants die, although the numbers are unknown. Effects on other organisms vary. Fish populations appear to be unaffected in the long run, although data from 1969 show a decline in the number of several species. The authors of the Oceanic Review Fisheries study did not want to make a strong relationship with the oil spill, because other variables such as water temperature and the following year of El Nià ± o can not be ruled out as the cause of divergence. Intertidal organisms such as barnacles ( chthamalus fissus ) are killed in large numbers, with mortality in some areas as high as 80 to 90 percent.
Overall, the long-term environmental impact of the spill appears to be minimal. In a "no bond" study funded by the Western Oil and Gas Association, through the Allan Hancock Foundation at the University of Southern California, the authors suggest several hypotheses for the lack of environmental damage to biological resources on the Channel other than pelagic birds. and intertidal organisms. First, the creature there may have evolved tolerance to oil in water due to natural seepage around for at least tens of thousands of years; the area around Coal Oil Point has one of the most active natural underwater oil seeps in the world. Second, the abundance of oil-eating bacteria in water may be greater because of the regular existence of oil in the water. Third, a spill occurred between two major Pacific storms; the storm breaks down the oil, spreading it faster than it does in many other oil spills, and the additional sediment load in the seawater from freshwater runoff will be even greater, and this helps the oil sink in quickly. Fourth, the heavy Santa Barbara Channel oil, has an API gravity between 10 and 13, and both are slightly soluble in water, and sinks relatively easily. Therefore, fish and other organisms are exposed to oil for a shorter time than is the case with other oil spills, such as the 1967 Torrey Canyon spill where crude oil is lighter, and emulsified during treatment with large amounts of dispersants and toxic detergents, place is longer.
Reports that large marine mammals were largely unaffected by the spill explicitly contradicted the story in Life magazine published on June 9, 1969. In late May, journalists and photographers from the magazine visited the island of San Miguel unpopulated. , the westernmost of the Channel Islands of Santa Barbara, famous for its marine elephant colonies and sea lions. The team counted over a hundred dead animals on the stretch of beach they visited, which was still black with oil.
Economic effects
The economic effects of the most severe spills during 1969, as all commercial fishing were suspended in the affected areas, and tourism declined sharply. Most of the industries associated with the ocean are affected in several ways. Damage to properties along the coastline is also quite large, as the storm has cleared oil outside the normal tide line. Both government entities and private individuals filed a class action lawsuit against Union Oil to recover damages. This was completed in about five years. The city of Santa Barbara received $ 4 million in 1974 for damages. Hotel owners, beachfront homes and other spill-damaged facilities receive $ 6.5 million; commercial fishing interests received $ 1.3 million for their losses; and cities, states, and County Santa Barbara settled for $ 9.5 million in total.
Consequences of policy
While the Santa Barbara oil spill is not the only event that builds the regulatory and legislative superstructure of the modern environmental movement in the United States - several important parts including the US Environmental Protection Agency, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Air Act, and at California, California Coastal Commission and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) - this is one of the most dramatic and visible of some important events leading to the change. During the 1960s, industrial pollution and its consequences grew more and more public attention, beginning with Rachel Carsi's Silent Spring 1962 book and including events such as the passage of the Water Quality Act, campaigns for DDT bans, The National Desert Defense System, a 1967 Torrey Canyon tanker accident that destroyed coastal areas of England and France, and the burning of the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. At that time, the Santa Barbara spill was the largest oil spill ever in US waters, and its incidence during a fierce battle between local residents and oil companies responsible for the spill created only more intense controversy, more open fighting and anti-oil causes looks more valid for a wider segment of the population. Within a few years after the spill, more environmental laws were passed than in other similar periods in US history.
The spill was the first test for the new National Pollution Contingency Plan, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Officials from the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, created only in 1965, came to Santa Barbara to oversee not only cleaning but also the effort to put the well.
Local organizations formed after the oil spill, including Get Oil Out! (GOO), formed on the first day of the disaster, as well as the Environmental Defense Center and the Community Environment Council. In addition, Rod Nash (author of the Environmental Rights Declaration), Garrett Hardin, environmental advocate Marc McGinnes and others created the first Environmental Studies Bachelor degree program of its kind at the University of California at Santa Barbara. A California voting initiative created a powerful California Coastal Commission, which oversees all activities in the coastal zone (3 nautical miles (6 km) from coastline, and inland within a band ranging from several hundred meters in urban areas up to several miles in some areas rural, part of coastline).
NEPA specifically changed the setting situation completely, therefore requiring all projects by federal government agencies to be researched for potential adverse environmental impacts before approval, including periods for public comment. This includes proposals for placing new drilling platforms in offshore oil leases.
Morgania Moratoriumia and offshore drilling and drilling
The State Lands Commission of California has not provided new leases for offshore drilling within its jurisdiction - up to the limit of 3 nautical miles (6 km) - since 1969, although existing operations, such as the Holly Platform in Ellwood Field and Rincon Island of Rincon, continue. A proposal to include a drill into a state-controlled zone from an outside platform, at Tranquillon Ridge, was rejected in 2009 by the State Land Commission with a 2-1 vote.
Drilling problems beyond the three mile limit, in the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) waters, are more complicated. Production from existing leases has been allowed almost without breaks since the spill, as well as new drilling of existing platforms within the lease limit. However, no new leases have been granted in the OCS since 1981. In 1976, lease-purchase was sold off the coast of Orange County, resulting in the construction of the Edith, Elly, Ellen and Eureka Platforms; in 1979, the Harvest and Hermosa Platforms were built in federal waters near Point Arguello, and in 1981, the oil fields in the area were further developed with the sale of another rental pair that now includes the Hidalgo and Irene platforms.
In 1981 Congress enacted a new offshore oil leasing moratorium, with the exception of the Gulf of Mexico and part of offshore Alaska, which remained in effect until 2008 when Congress did not update it.
Rents purchased in the 1960s in some cases were not developed until much later. Despite a new lease moratorium, Exxon installed the Harmony and Heritage Platform at Santa Barbara Channel in 1989, at over 1,000 feet (300 m) of water, completing the development of their Santa Ynez Unit (which includes Hondo and Petroleum Pescado Fields). Some of the federal leases are still underdeveloped, including the Gato Canyon Unit in the southwest of Goleta.
Environmental Rights Day
About three months before Earth Day, Santa Barbara celebrated Environmental Rights Day on January 28, 1970, the first anniversary of the oil explosion. Here the Declaration of Environmental Rights, made by Rod Nash, is read. The same person who organized the event, led by Marc McGinnes, has worked with Congressman Pete McCloskey (R-CA) for the drafting of the National Environmental Policy Act. McCloskey, Senator Gaylord Nelson), Denis Hayes, Senator Alan Cranston, Paul Ehrlich, David Brower spoke at the Environmental Rights Day conference and endorsed the Declaration of Environmental Rights.
Earth Day
The aftermath of the spill inspired later Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin to organize what came to be known as "Earth Day", when he managed to collect about 20 million people to educate people on environmental issues on April 20, 1970, with the help of US Rep. Pete McCloskey of California.
Today
A foundation stays in the Strait of Santa Barbara along with its three siblings, Platform B, C, and Hillhouse, still pumping oil from very drained fields. In 2010, the Dos Cuadras Square has produced 260 million barrels of oil; The Mineral Management Service estimates in 2010 that the remaining 11.4 million barrels (1,810,000 m 3 ) in the field can be recovered with current technology.
The current operator of the drilling platform, along with three other platforms on the Dos Cuadras field, is a private company DCOR LLC, from Ventura, California. They acquired Platform A of Plains Exploration & amp; Production in 2005. DCOR is the fourth company to run the platform since Unocal sold its Santa Barbara Channel operation in 1996.
See also
- California Coastal Commission
- List of oil spills
- The History of Santa Barbara, California
- Offshore oil and gas in California
- 1971 San Francisco Bay oil spill
- 2015 Refugio State Beach oil spill
References
Further reading
- Easton, Robert (1972). Black Tide: Santa Barbara Oil Spill and Its Consequences. Delacorte Press.
- Daniel Haier (2005, January 31). "Offshore Offshore Offshore Legacy." UCSB Nexus Daily 85 (68).
- A report published by the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources in 1972 illustrates the geology involved, and also distinguishes between seepage caused by underground explosions, and natural seepage in the channel: Oil and Gas Seepage Off California Beach
External links
- Santa Barbara Region, Energy Division
- Explosion on Union Oil Platform A
- History of the 1969 oil spill event
- 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill
- Oil spill, Richard Nixon and EPA
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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