Around 11 a.m. Wednesday, kayakers spotted oil about 1,000 feet off Goleta Beach.
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“They’re seeps underneath the tectonic plates”, said U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson Andrea Anderson. The release spilled about 2,500 barrels of oil, which migrated more than 100 miles along the California coast.
Kids were playing on the beach and kayakers were back in the same area where, 24 hours earlier, their small vessels were covered with a line of oil.
“They’re going to assess the situation from the air”, she said. “It would obviously give us all the more reason to be lobbying actively, for better controls on oil production in our area”, said Redmond.
David Zaniboni, a spokesperson for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, told Los Angeles television station KABC that his agency also has not identified the source of the sheen and as a result was not calling the incident an oil spill.
“The cleanup was devastating for a lot of people and cost a lot of money and it really damaged our resources”, said Barbara Burge, who lives near Goleta Beach.
The investigation into the source of Wednesday’s oil is ongoing. But the size of the sheen made officials question whether it was naturally caused.
Although it was large it wasn’t thick and gooey enough to be scooped up, said Kneen. It should simply break up and deplete on its own in the days ahead, she said.
Tar balls that appeared on Goleta Beach on Wednesday, while authorities were investigating the sheen, turned out to be from natural seepage, officials said.
Aerial photos showed the slick near the Santa Barbara Channel’s Platform Holly oil facility, but officials with Venoco Inc., which operates the platform, said the oil didn’t come from there.
The platform is now shut down and there is no oil in its pipeline, said Zach Shulman, the company’s director for corporate finance and investor relations.
It was first observed about 12 miles from the area where the pipeline ruptured.
Popular campgrounds were closed, nearby commercial fishing was prohibited and almost 300 marine mammals and birds were killed.
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Refugio State Beach, one of several stretches of coastline soiled by the May spill, reopened to the public just two weeks ago.
