*A bird balances on a boom that was set up to contain oil in Huntington Beach. | Mario Tama/Getty Images*

Huntington Beach Oil Spill – Pipeline Breach of October 2, 2021

By Cindy Hardin

October 12, 2021

Western Tanager, Vol. 88 No. 2, Nov.-Dec. 2021

Recently, my hometown of Huntington Beach has been much in the news, and not for a happy reason. For the past 10 days, the media has been saturated with coverage of an oil spill that originated there on October 2nd, 2021. Between 125,000 and 144,000 gallons (the exact estimated number varies) spewed from a ruptured pipeline, and as I write this the oil slick continues a relentless path southward. Currently, oil from the spill has been sighted as far south as Carlsbad, in San Diego County. Hopefully by the time you read this article the disaster will no longer be front page news, as that would mean clean-up has been completed. Sadly, “completed” only means that visible oil has been gathered and hauled away from the waters and beaches. It is an inevitable fact that some oil will remain entwined with the delicate and unique ecosystems along our coast, and it is quite possible the magnitude of the damage will never be properly inventoried.

*A staff member of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife examines a sanderling that was affected by the oil in Huntington Beach. | Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP*

During this period I have received calls from concerned friends all over the country who know that Huntington will always hold a special place in my heart. The fact that Huntington Beach was pretty much founded and prospered via the oil industry is an irony that is not lost on me! There has also been much finger pointing around this event. Oil companies large and small have come under fire. Government regulations and oversight, or the lack thereof, have also been criticized. There is an outcry for the decommissioning of all offshore wells, and hand wringing about who is responsible and will handle the cost of this expensive process.

*Orange County Register Photo of Huntington Beach — then and now.*
*A historic photograph of Huntington Beach* with oil wells along the coast is held within a scene from the summer of 2014. Oil derricks marked the coastline until the early 1980s, when city leaders decided to market the city for surf tourism, said Jerry Person, city historian.

However, there is a saying that goes like this: When one points the finger, three point back at you. Our country and its residents have an insatiable appetite for petroleum. Although a higher percentage of vehicles on the road are hybrid or completely battery powered than a few years ago, gasoline guzzling trucks and SUVs are still the number one style of vehicles sold in America. Jet travel continues to cost less and less if inflation is taken into account, and number of flights, both domestic and international, are almost back to pre-pandemic levels. Fuel consumption by vehicles is an obvious use of petroleum, and I certainly am part of this system. Although I ride my bike to work at least a couple of days a week, and pedal instead of drive for local errands, I still use my car regularly, and have a deep love of travel. But the presence of petroleum in our lives goes far beyond transportation.

*Environmental cleanup crews work in Huntington Beach on October 5. | Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images*

Since the international health crisis reached our shores in March, 2020, online shopping has increased dramatically, and most of those goods come from overseas. Container ship traffic at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles has increased fivefold. In fact, the current theory is that the anchor of one of these massive vessels dragged the pipeline that ruptured over 100 feet, and the pressure on the pipe from this displacement weakened and eventually caused the pipe to crack, resulting in the spill of October 2nd. Transporting these items from abroad uses a huge amount of fossil fuel. Many, if not all of these products that we buy online are wrapped in plastic or surrounded by plastic packing material. And the items themselves are often made of plastic.

Another consequence of the pandemic has been a huge uptick in delivered and to go food. Plastic containers are heavily used to contain these foodstuffs. When we think of oil extraction, we mostly think of the fuel that oil is used to produce. But 40% of petroleum stock is used to make plastic. Many of our clothes and shoes are made of plastic, too. And in the United States alone, the plastic bottles that contain the water and other beverages that we consume annually, if laid end to end, would reach to the moon and back 38 times. To make matters worse, only about 10% of those bottles are actually recycled.

Clearly, the uncomfortable truth is the finger points at all of us, at great profit to worldwide manufacturing companies and producers of fossil fuels. These entities are only responding to our demands. So the questions arise: What exactly is enough? What is the difference between need and want? Do we really “need” a new car every two or three years? Is it actually necessary to “refresh” our wardrobe, home furnishings, electronics and other household items before they have actually worn out? Slick advertisements tell us that we do, and we are more and more exposed to these sales pitches via social media, ubiquitous billboards, and even through product placement in the entertainment that we watch.

The good news is that as consumers, we do have choices. We can shop less, and avoid packaged food stuffs by eating more food that is not processed-think fresh produce. We can choose to use alternative transportation, like bicycles or our own two feet for local errands. Second hand stores abound in this part of the world, filled with lightly used items that can replace things that actually have worn out. These are all small steps, but collectively they can make a big difference.

If you have made it this far in reading this rather discouraging article, I commend your fortitude and hope that it might inspire some change in our collective habits. And I will close with a bit more good news: the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, a significant Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach, seems to have escaped contamination from this oil spill. This is great news for resident wildlife and the migratory birds that are now returning to these wetlands for their annual winter stay. Unfortunately, a smaller wetland to the south, Talbert Marsh, did see oil wash in amongst its mudflats and waters, but diligent clean-up efforts were made at this location. And the majority of the slick stayed further out to sea, and did not seem to sully the rocky intertidal zones of Laguna, a Marine Protected Area.

This spill could have been much worse that it actually was, and was nowhere near as large as the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, one of the first events to bring home the environmental dangers of offshore drilling. It is my hope that it will be taken as a warning, and an impetus for change.