Was a ship anchor the cause of the devastating Orange County oil spill?
Los Angeles, California - As a huge oil spill threatens Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, and other cities along the Orange County coast in Southern California, officials say they’re investigating the possibility that a ship’s anchor might have struck a pipeline, causing the leak which began on Saturday.
Martyn Willsher, the president and chief executive of Amplify Energy Corp – the parent company of the pipeline’s operator – said during a news conference on Monday that a ship’s anchor striking the pipeline is "one of the distinct possibilities" for the cause of the spill. No additional details were provided.
The Coast Guard said it was investigating that as one possible scenario, but officials did not present evidence suggesting an anchor could be the cause.
"We have examined more than 8,000 feet of pipe and we have isolated one specific area of significant interest," Willsher said.
"We did this primarily through (remotely operated vehicles) to this point, but we are sending divers down now to verify what we were seeing. There’s more information to come, but I think we’re moving very closely to the source and the cause of this incident."
Cargo ships heading to the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach frequently pass through the area where the spill occurred, officials said.
The spill, first reported Saturday morning, originated from a pipeline running from the Port of Long Beach to an offshore oil platform known as Elly. The failure caused roughly 126,000 gallons of oil to gush into the Catalina Channel, creating a slick that spanned about 8,320 acres.
Multiple new reports detail that the pipeline's parent company emerged from bankruptcy just four years ago and has a history of federal noncompliance citations and violations.
"This oil spill constitutes one of the most devastating situations that our community has dealt with in decades," said Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr, calling it an "ecological disaster."
The oil spill will likely affect beaches for the next few days
The spill has left striations of crude along stretches of sand in Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and Huntington Beach, killing fish and birds and threatening ecologically sensitive wetlands in what officials are calling an environmental catastrophe.
The oil will likely continue to encroach on Orange County beaches and environmentally sensitive habitats for the next few days, officials said.
Coast Guard officials are flying over the spill three to four times a day to map the oil’s direction and compare it with tides, currents, and winds to project the potential impact on beaches south of Laguna in the coming days. County and local officials say they’re poised to close more of the coast and the Dana Point harbor, if necessary.
"It really is dependent on the prevailing weather conditions, but the oil continues to move in a southerly direction," said Captain Rebecca Ore, commander of the Coast Guard’s Los Angeles-Long Beach sector.
Mayor Carr said it's possible the beaches in the county could be closed anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.
Two contracted oil-recovery vessels known as skimmers worked off the coast of Laguna Beach overnight to prevent as much of the oil from coming ashore as possible, said Kevin Snow, chief of marine safety for Laguna Beach.
"The entire city is a marine-protected area, which means we have sensitive marine habitat and wildlife here that is protected, and we need resources to protect this unique ecosystem," Snow said.
An anchor was the culprit in another large oil spill in Huntington Beach in 1990. An oil tanker punctured by its own anchor released some 400,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean off the beaches in February of that year.
The spill killed about 1,000 birds and shut down nearly 15 miles of beaches on the coast for three weeks. Cleanup costs reached as high as $35 million.
Cover photo: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire