Last October’s breakthrough of an oil sheen off Huntington Beach served as a powerful reminder of how long Southern California will need to sort through the legal, regulatory, and environmental implications. However, its estimates that 25,000 gallons of crude oil get released into the ocean during a pipeline spill.
California’s HUNTINGTON BEACH
The owner of an underwater oil pipeline that spilled 25,000 gallons of oil into the ocean off Southern California. Last year, they will pay nearly $1 million in cleanup expenses. The proposed claim settlement with Amplify Energy Corp. for the costs associated with the leak off Huntington Beach. However, it was approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
About 94,600 liters of oil, or a spill of the pipeline release 4 miles offshore. Although the leak was not as bad as initially expected, it nonetheless forced the closure of beaches for a week. Fisheries for over a month oiled birds and put wetlands that towns in Orange County had been working to rehabilitate at risk.
Investigators think that in January 2021, months before it finally burst on October 1. However, the San Pedro Bay Pipeline, which carried crude from offshore oil platforms to the coast weaken when a cargo ship’s anchor caught on it in heavy winds.
Amplify Energy, a Houston-based company filed a complaint against two container ship owners. And a group that monitors marine traffic, claiming that they failed to stop the spill. According to the claim, two ships allegedly dragged their anchors across the pipeline in January 2021.
According to the Orange County Register, the $956,352 settlement with Orange County includes around $238,000 for the county’s Public Works Department. Moreover, it built sand berms and booms to prevent oil from damaging critical wetlands. The county’s health department, and the sheriff’s office that runs the Harbor Patrol. And the county’s legal expenses as well as the employment of contractors and environmental consultants will all receive money.
