A massive oil spill off the coast of southern California left dead fish, oil-soaked birds and polluted wetlands, in an incident that Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr has called an environmental catastrophe.
The spill will have “irreversible consequences on the environment,” Orange County official Katrina Foley said after many dead fish and birds were found on the shoreline.
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And he maintained that: “The ramifications will extend beyond the visible oil and the smell with which our residents are dealing at this time. The impact on the environment is irreversible.”
An estimated 3,000 barrels have spread in an oil slick covering about 13 square miles of the Pacific Ocean since it was first reported Saturday morning, Carr said at a news conference.
The mayor added, “our wetlands are being degraded and parts of our coastline are now covered in oil. This oil spill represents one of the most devastating situations our community has faced in decades.”
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The spill was caused by a breach in a connection to the Elly oil rig and spread from the Huntington Beach pier to Newport Beach, an area popular with surfers and bathers.
Carr explained that the oil rig is operated by Beta Offshore, a subsidiary of Amplify Energy Corporation, a Houston-based group. He further added: “In the coming days and weeks we challenge the responsible parties to do everything possible to rectify this environmental catastrophe.”
Amplify Energy CEO Martyn Willsher told a news conference in Long Beach that the pipeline had been shut down and the remaining oil sucked out. He said divers were still trying to determine where and why the spill occurred.
For her part, the spokeswoman for the US Coast Guard Service, in the area of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Rebeca Ore, affirmed that the oil slick is being closely followed both with planes that fly over the area and with personnel on the coasts, and pointed out that cleanup work is being organized.
A city statement states: “The leak has not been fully stopped, preliminary patches have been completed to repair the oil spill site.” And he adds that “the size of the spill required swift and aggressive action.”
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