2-18-09 by dugan
2-19 update: AP update from last night says it’s definitely a lubricant oil spill from a tank on the platform, but still not fixed. Why’s that? And how long was it leaking before it was "discovered" (by who?) on Monday 2-16. Lots of questions, but sadly no coverage except AP in the increasingly vestigial newspapers in Ventura and Santa Barbara. TV stations are also just picking up AP. This may not be a significant spill, but it’s Exxon, it’s an offshore platform and it should have been fixed before now. When local news outlets can’t even make a phone call on this kind of story, big corporations get off the hook.
"Drill, Baby Drill" just took a big hit. There’s an oil spill in progress at an Exxon Mobil oil platform off the Santa Barbara coast. The initial AP reports indicate it’s small, and Exxon is saying the spill may be lubricating oil from the platform, not crude oil. But we’ll see. The spill plume trailing from Platform Harmony is already said to be a mile long. Southerly currents are likely to take the slick into a federal marine ecological preserve just off Santa Barbara. Exxon is making the state lands commission look really smart for rejecting a recent stealth deal that would allow new drilling in the same offshore area.
Santa Barbara, of course, suffered the huge 1969 oil spill that covered beaches with tarry oil and dead birds. That spill generated the Clean Water Act, Earth Day and a federal moratorium on offshore drilling. Congress allowed that moratorium to lapse late last year, and oil companies immediately began their grab (here’s a map from a San Francisco Chronicle story on areas of interest). Thanks to Exxon, there’s probably an even chance now that the ban will be restored. Here’s hoping Santa Barbara doesn’t have to pay a damaging environmental price.
Alaska, for instance, is still paying for the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker spill. Exxon spent nearly 20 years and at least tens of millions of dollars on lawyers to keep from fully compensating Alaskans for their environmental and economic damage. That battle ended with a win for Exxon last June in the Supreme Court.
And the oil platform that gushed the Santa Barbara spill? Platforms next door are 40 years old and still pumping, for a local company known as DCOR. One of them had a small spill in December, about 1,400 gallons, that had environmentalists up in arms. Exxon’s spill, no matter what its size, will keep the issue alive.