The source of the oil that has been washing ashore South Bay beaches is most likely local and not from the Santa Barbara oil spill, an expert from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and a U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson said Thursday.
“It’s hard to imagine that it would travel 100 miles, hit one piece of shoreline and not hit other places or be detected,” said Doug Helton, the Incident Operations Coordinator for NOAA’s Emergency Response Division, which responds to oil spills across the county.
NOAA is assessing whether it is possible that the tar balls are coming from Santa Barbara at the request of the U.S. Coast Guard.
“We’re doing the modeling right now,” said Helton.
A spokesperson for the Coast Guard, Petty Officer Michael Anderson, said that the probability that the oil came from Santa Barbara was “extremely low at this point.”
Helton and Anderson cautioned that they had not ruled any possibilities out, however, including the possibility that the source is natural seepage.
“It’s just like a crime scene — we’re investigating a crime,” said Anderson. “We don’t eliminate anything until we can completely eliminate it. We’re taking every possible suspect.”
Rod Spackman, a spokesperson for Chevron, which has an oil refinery in El Segundo near the northern border of the affected area, said the company had checked its equipment and not found any leaks.
He confirmed that the company had halted the delivery of a new shipment from one of its offshore tankers, but only as a precaution, he said.
As of Thursday evening, the Coast Guard had noticed a “little more heavy concentration of oil south toward Redondo Beach,” Anderson said. As a result, they are not planning on opening the beach at 6 a.m. Friday as previously announced. Instead, they will monitor the beach overnight and then determine Friday morning if it is safe to open.
So far, they have not seen any oil near the booms the Coast Guard set up in King Harbor in Redondo Beach or in Ballona Creek north of Playa del Rey, Anderson said.
Currently 90 people are working on the response, including those manning the booms and cleaning up the beaches. The cleanup is being paid for by the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is funded by fines from those responsible for past oil spills.
The Coast Guard did notice some natural seepage near King Harbor in Redondo Beach, although it doesn’t believe that it is related to that coming ashore.
California has many natural seeps, both on land and offshore. The Santa Monica Bay alone has at least a dozen, Helton said.
“Imagine the La Brea Tar Pits, but underwater,” he said.
He described a seep as a “crack in the sea floor with oil bubbling out of it.”
“Like the Beverly Hillbilles,” he said. “The oil blossoms as it hits the surface. That’s why they’re drilling out there.”
However, he acknowledged that the amount seen was a “larger quantity that you might otherwise expect” if the source was natural, which is why he thinks it’s probably a spill.
The Coast Guard has cross-matched samples of the oil with known natural seepage from the area and found no match, Anderson said.
The oil that has washed ashore has been in the form of clumps, or tar balls, and not liquid. It can take from days to weeks for oil to turn into balls, Helton said.
“If it was fresh discharge, it would be more liquid,” said Helton. “It takes time for tar balls to form.”
Factors such as the type of oil and weather conditions determine how long it takes.
“Some seep oil is already weathered like a tar ball when it comes out,” he added.
An oil-soaked loon was brought to the LA County Lifeguard Training Center in Manhattan Beach Thursday. Its finder didn’t say where he’d captured it, according to Anderson, so they have not been able to determine if it is related to the oil spill. It was taken to a rehabilitation facility in San Pedro and is “currently stable and alive,” Anderson said.
So far, it is “the only wildlife presented to the response team,” he said, although a marine reconnaissance team from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is continuing to monitor the area.
