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A video from the seabed off the Orange County coast this week shows damage to an oil pipeline that sent up to 131,000 gallons of crude into the ocean, fouling beaches and threatening environmentally sensitive wetlands .
The images, taken by a remotely operated vehicle on Monday, appear to show part of the 4,000-foot section of the nearly 18-mile pipeline that had been relocated. Divers reported and video showed a 13-inch crack along the length of the concrete-covered steel pipe, according to the Joint Unified Command overseeing the spill response.
Martyn Willsher, president and CEO of the pipeline operator’s parent company, Amplify Energy Corp., described the force as pulling the pipe in an almost “semicircle.”
“The pipeline has basically been pulled like a bowstring,” he said.
Federal sources told The Times this week that the move could be best explained by the anchor of a ship dragging on the ocean floor and hooking up the pipeline, which connects the port of Long Beach to an oil rig. offshore known as Elly.
There were several large freighters in the immediate area of the leak before the oil was spotted.
A final determination of the cause of the spill can take months, but Coast Guard investigators have found no other explanation, federal sources said. Authorities said the video confirms oil is no longer leaking from the 41-year-old pipeline.
Pipeline expert Richard Kuprewicz expects investigators to remove the damaged pipeline and then begin a metallurgical examination of the steel.
“When did the tension come in?” ” He asked. “Days before? Or did something in its operation cause it to break on Friday night? Forensic science is sophisticated, and they should be able to tell if the damage was delayed or immediate.”
Authorities have not provided an update on the investigation. Estimates of the amount of oil spilled into the ocean have varied over the past five days. Coast Guard officials said Thursday that between 24,696 gallons and 131,000 gallons of oil had leaked from the pipeline. They were unable to refine this estimate.
Rebecca Ore, commander of the US Coast Guard Los Angeles-Long Beach area, said the estimate of 131,000 gallons is a “worst-case maximum flow rate which is a volume-based planning scenario in a pipeline. “.
The cleanup, which some county officials said could take weeks, continued Thursday morning before a storm that meteorologists say could bring 20 mph winds to the area and potentially push oil toward beaches.
More than 800 people were cleaning up oil from the beaches and offshore areas of Sunset Beach in San Diego County. By the end of the week, officials plan to increase that number to 1,500.
A pollution control vessel works off the coast of Huntington Beach where an oil plume has persisted since the spill. Two other ships were grappling with another slick that has slowly moved south over the past four days and is now off the coast of San Clemente, according to maps.
More than 5,500 gallons of crude oil have been recovered and 12,860 feet – nearly 2 ½ miles – of containment boom have been deployed to protect the beaches, according to the Coast Guard.
As oil is exposed to the sun, wave action, tides and currents, the behavior and characteristics of the oil change, Ore said.
“Our flyovers are constantly monitoring what this offshore condition looks like and what oil looks like and we are seeing trends that indicate … lighter sheen and less heavy oil,” she said.
On Thursday morning, north of the Huntington Beach Pier, a worker in a white hazmat suit picked up a quarter-sized lump of oil, brought it to his nose and sniffed. Recognizing the smell of crude, he used a gloved hand to lower the ball of tar into a plastic garbage bag.
He was one of 60 people scouring the shores of Huntington State Beach for oil. Some wore orange nets called sieves, which allow them to sift the oil while leaving the sand intact. Others, posed like human derricks, leaned over and picked up the crude by hand.
Crews have made progress in cleaning up the beach over the past five days. Signs of the black rings and crude piles that littered the shore after the weekend spill have started to fade.
“Make sure to check under the leaves!” Shouted a worker, turning a piece of kelp in his hands.
Crews also survey the coast in search of wildlife disturbed by the spill. Late Wednesday, they had recovered 19 live oiled birds: six western grebes, five snow plovers, a sanderling, a swamp grebe, a coot, a dogfish, a crested cormorant, a clark grebe, a California gull. and a brown pelican. According to the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, three double-crested cormorants, an American coot and a western gull were found dead.
Representative Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano), who visited the spill this week by boat and helicopter, said he could see oil spreading along the coast. He is pushing for legislation that would ban future offshore drilling, but he is also interested in phasing out drilling currently underway. Offshore oil infrastructure is aging and creating more risk of ecological disaster, he said.
“It’s just not worth drilling along the southern California coast,” he said. “The amount of oil we produce is really a drop in the bucket.”
Stretches of sand at Huntington Beach and parts of Newport Beach were the most heavily soiled by the spill. Oil has also run aground at Laguna Beach and Dana Point, officials said. As a large plume continues to drift south, beach authorities in San Clemente and San Diego County are also bracing for possible oil on their shores.
Oceanside rescuers found two small tar balls on the beach Wednesday night. Authorities in Carlsbad and Encinitas also reported tar. However, officials are uncertain whether the tar is from the spill or from normal ocean debris that sometimes wash up on the shore, said Terry Gorman Brown, a management analyst in the Oceanside City Manager’s office.
The Coast Guard has dispatched cleanup crews to the beaches south of Camp Pendleton and flies over the area several times a day to search for oil. Oceanside is ready to deploy a dam to protect its harbor if necessary, said Gorman Brown.
“The most southerly that they’ve seen a shard is about 12 miles off the coast of San Onofre,” said Gorman Brown. “We see how it goes. “
The Department of Fisheries and Wildlife has expressed concern about the possibility of oil entering the Agua Hedionda lagoon in Carlsbad, which is feeding the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad desalination plant. Officials said Thursday afternoon they were deploying booms at the mouth of the lagoon as a precaution.
The plant, which supplies about 50 million gallons of water per day to San Diego County, has not been affected, said Scott Maloni, vice president of project development for Poseidon Water.
In San Clemente, there was no sign of disturbance from the spill that damaged beaches in the northern part of Orange County. Despite intermittent drizzle and overcast skies, surfers surfed the waves along the shore and people fished off the San Clemente Pier. The children waded and played along the shore.
Sheri Cowell walked over to a bench overlooking the pier, as she does every day. She scanned the coastline for oil but saw nothing unusual.
“I thought it would come; I just don’t know when, ”Cowell said.
Frank Lomonico was fishing off the San Clemente pier on Thursday for the mackerel he needed to set up two of his lobster traps when it started to rain.
The Dana Point resident lamented that with the closure of the port he could not fish for lobster as he had planned this week. Going to see on his small fishing boat in search of shellfish is a tradition he has maintained for ten years.
“Why live here if we continue to pollute? Lominico, 71, said. “There is no need to take the oil out of the ocean. There are too many surfers, fishermen, businesses and cities that depend on it.
Times editors Richard Winton, Chris Megerian and Anita Chabria contributed to this report.
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