More beaches closed amid questions about oil spill
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — Officials imposed more restrictions on Southern California beaches Tuesday in response to a large oil spill while more questions emerged about whether the accident was swiftly reported.
Signs were posted on the famous Huntington Beach declaring that the beach was open but that the ocean and shore were closed. On a typical day, surfers would usually be seen bobbing in the waves, but not now. Huntington State Beach still had an oily smell, although it was less severe than the stench emanating from the water on Sunday.
Orange County officials closed the Dana Point Harbor and a beach for small children. Those closures are in addition to other Dana Point beaches and all beaches in Laguna Beach.
The restrictions were announced a day after oil spill reports reviewed by The Associated Press raised questions about the Coast Guard’s response to one of the state’s largest recent spills and about how quickly Amplify Energy, the company operating three offshore platforms and the pipeline, recognized it had a problem and notified authorities.
The Coast Guard received the first report of a possible oil spill more than 12 hours before the company reported a major leak in its pipeline and a cleanup effort was launched, records show.
Two early calls about the spill came into the National Response Center, which is staffed by the Coast Guard and notifies other agencies of disasters for quick response. The first was from an anchored ship that noticed a sheen on the water. The second came six hours later from a federal agency that said a possible oil slick was spotted on satellite imagery, according to reports by the California Office of Emergency Services.
The spill sent up to 126,000 gallons of heavy crude into the ocean off Huntington Beach, and it then washed onto miles of beaches and a protected marshland. The beaches could remain closed for weeks or longer, a major hit to the local economy. Coastal fisheries in the area are closed to commercial and recreational fishing.
Federal and state authorities require rapid reporting of a spill. Failure to do so has led to criminal prosecutions of companies, including Plains All American Pipeline, which caused a coastal spill near Santa Barbara in 2015, and Southern California Gas Co. for a massive well blowout later that year.
