Nose-witness Account of October 2021 Huntington Beach Oil Spill
I have to report that I was a nose-witness to what I believe was the Friday night start of the Huntington Beach Oil Spill. The spilled oil from an offshore oil pipe to drilling platforms was detected Saturday morning, and hit the shoreline and local habitats on Sunday morning.
There was an air show over Huntington Beach on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but the Sunday show was cancelled. Surfers observed dolphins on Saturday morning speeding dangerously among the surfers, but it could have been in reaction to the four jet teams passing along the beach.
The spill was recorded at 126,000 gallons, but I would like to know how that was estimated. The spill damages beaches, the Tolbert wetlands, birds, fish, dolphins, and whales. 3,700 feet of booms have been deployed. The beaches may be closed for weeks or months.
So for me, l had a new gas clothes dryer installed in my garage Friday afternoon. I had run it on high after installation to get rid of the gas smell. Then I washed and dried some towels to test it out, without any smell.
After dinner, I smelled something like gas, but not quite. It was in the garage, and in front of the house where the exhaust goes. I applied my Occams Razor, and my assumption that there are no accidental coincidences. I called the gas company, and arranged an inspection later that night. I opened the garage door to vent the garage. Then I went to my back patio and opened the door to air out the house. But I could also smell gas in the back yard. I checked with my neighbor, and they had not used either their outdoor gas heater or BBQ.
Later that night, the smell had dissipated. The gas company called me to say that they also had 20-40 calls in the neighborhood also reporting a smell, and had checked some out. They thought that maybe there had been some gas leaking somewhere. Since I no longer smelled anything around the house or garage, I canceled the visit. It wasn’t until 1 AM in the morning that I remembered that a large gas leak had once exploded in the Bay Area.
Saturday, I watched my grad school alma mater Stanford win a football game against #3 ranked Oregon. But at night, alma mater UCLA lost to Arizona State.
Sunday afternoon, watching the Rams losing, all of my local news sources informed me about the oil spill. I again applied Occam’s Razor, adding my assumption that there are no accidental coincidences, and this time concluded that the area odor on Friday night must have been the start of the Huntington Beach oil spill. I looked until I finally found a news source that placed the observed spill as early as Saturday morning. I then checked that the current air flow was onshore winds, but I don’t really know what it was Friday night. The Los Angeles Times reported that people on the beaches started smelling the oil slick Friday afternoon.
Further thinking about the spill raises many questions. The most basic is what was the nature of the rupture, and what caused it? Was it human error? Was it neglected inspection and repairs?
Did the oil company detect it as soon as it started. If not, why not? When did they notice it? When did they shut it off at the source? Who did they notify? Did they notice the smell, and check on its range? Did they notify anybody about the smell, like the Mayor’s office or first responders? Did they inform them that the gas might be noxious or dangerous to inhale? Did they notify the gas company to see if the smell was detected?
Did they notify any of the shore facilities to put out barriers to protect the shore? Did they send out any equipment to confine the oil spill?
These questions should be answered to Huntington Beach, and Irvine where the odors were detected, as well as possibly Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. Our cities, Orange County, our California state representatives, and Congressional representatives as well as the federal and state Environmental Protection Agencies should find out if all laws and protocols had been followed, and if any new laws and protocols should be instituted.
CBS News calls the fumes toxic. The beaches and water are covered with toxic oil blobs.
I myself write articles on air pollution. After the gas company informed me of the size of the odor, I should have checked my air monitor sources to see how serious and wide spread it was, although it had already dissipated at my house. Lesson learned.
Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter represents Irvine and the heart of Orange County in the House. She is strategically on the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources and on the Subcommittee on Public Lands, as well as the Oceans Caucus. California gets a lot of its oil safely on land, and imports more from Canada and the Middle East. We see that offshore drilling is equivalent to drilling in our living rooms. It affects the air we breathe, our recreations, our home values, our economy, and our quality of life. Please email her or attend a virtual town hall and argue for our values to end offshore oil in California for good. Remember that Trump was opening new oil leases along the entire US coast except for his precious Florida coast and Mar-a-Lago.
