Oil Spills Orange County

The oil spill that threatened Orange County beaches Thursday night appeared to be headed away from the Bolsa Chica wetlands, where thousands of birds nest and breed in one of California's largest ecological reserves.

After 416,000 gallons of Alaskan crude fouled the Orange County coast in early 1990, hundreds of businesses, commercial fisherman and property owners went to court and sued for more than $14 million in damages. Douglas Edlund, a Corona del Mar real estate investor, asked for $6,500 in lost income from his oceanfront rental on 66th Street in Newport Beach. Mark Hendriks, a dory fisherman from Costa Mesa, sought roughly $30,000 in earnings he figures he lost. The State Fish Co.

For the second time in two months, about 200 gallons of crude oil leaked from a Unocal oil field and flowed into Hillcrest Park. Company officials said the spill created a sticky, stinky mess, but posed no health hazard. The spill began sometime between late Friday night and early Saturday morning when water from a broken water main flooded an oil well and caused the spill.

Federal and state wildlife officials Wednesday released a $2.5-million plan to increase populations of Southern California seabirds, making up for the thousands of birds killed in the worst oil spill in Orange County history. Eleven years after a ruptured oil tanker blackened 15 miles of the county's coast, wildlife agencies released a long-awaited plan to help replenish the numbers of California brown pelicans, western and Clark's grebes and other seabirds.

The Bolsa Chica wetlands, famous as a haven for rare birds, turned unnaturally treacherous Sunday when waters coated by an oil spill endangered dozens of birds and mobilized a major rescue drama. Rescue workers scooped oil-doused ducks and grebes from a flood-control channel, racing against the clock to find injured wildlife before darkness fell and plunging temperatures further threatened the birds.

The U.S. Coast Guard, in a report issued Wednesday, officially blamed the February oil spill off Orange County on the oil company that operated the mooring where a tanker ran over its anchor and on the pilot who was guiding the ship. The accident occurred because Golden West Refining Co. failed to regularly survey the depth of the water surrounding its mooring 1.3 miles southwest of Huntington Beach, where the American Trader spilled 397,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean, the report said.

A week-long federal survey to determine if ocean depth was a factor in the American Trader oil spill got off to a slow start Tuesday, in part because of electronic interference from a boat that was taking measurements for the owner of the mooring where the accident occurred.

The captain and mooring master of the American Trader, which spilled 394,000 gallons of oil into Orange County coastal waters on Feb. 7, were foolish to depend on 15-year-old charts for the area and bear most of the responsibility for the spill even if the charts they were using prove to be flawed, lawyers and shipping experts said Thursday.

The highest fine that can be levied against the firm determined to be responsible for the rupture of an oil tanker off the California coast is $250,000, officials said Friday. Cmdr. Scott Porter, a Coast Guard spokesman in Long Beach, said the Environmental Protection Agency would impose the fine only if the Coast Guard's maximum penalty--$5,000--is considered inadequate, "taking into account the magnitude of the spill." "I think we have to assume that ($5,000) isn't much for a major company. .

Winds and tides worked in concert Monday to pushed bands of thick black crude oil onto Huntington and Bolsa Chica state beaches, producing the worst pollution yet from last week's 394,000-gallon spill off the Orange County coast. Overwhelmed by the onslaught of blackish goo that coated vast stretches of the state beaches north of the Huntington Beach Municipal Pier, officials rushed to deploy nearly 200 additional workers, increasing cleanup crews by a third.

More than 30 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the Bolsa Chica wetlands Monday afternoon, according to a Huntington Beach city official. No harm to wildlife was reported. The fuel came from the leaking tank of a pickup truck parked near Twilight and Evening Breeze Circle, said Rich Barnard, city spokesman. In two hours, the fuel flowed into a storm drain that empties into a small pond on the southeastern side of Bolsa Chica.

Fire officials expressed confidence that they contained Saturday's spill of several hundred gallons of fuel by an Irvine company before it could reach a creek leading to Newport's Back Bay. Emergency crews erected dikes a half-mile downhill from the spill, which officials said occurred between 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. at a Parker Hannifin Corp. facility at Jamboree Road and Michelson Drive.

The owner of a pipeline that oozed more than 2,000 gallons of oil into the ocean off Orange County, causing tar balls to wash up on at least one area beach last year, has agreed to pay a fine levied by federal regulators. The U.S. Minerals Management Services fined Aera Energy LLC $48,000 for improper calibration of a leak-detection system in a pipeline about 10 miles off Huntington Beach.

The owner of a pipeline that oozed more than 2,000 gallons of oil into the ocean off Orange County last year has agreed to pay a $48,000 fine levied by federal regulators. The U.S. Minerals Management Services fined Aera Energy LLC for improper calibration of a leak-detection system in a pipeline about 10 miles off Huntington Beach.

Ten years after the American Trader spilled 416,000 gallons of oil, fouling 15 miles of Orange County beaches, government officials now have a plan to divvy up an $11.6-million legal settlement for a range of beach and recreational projects, including a marine education center in Upper Newport Bay. The bulk of the money--about $8.

Efforts to flush out the last of the oil from a leaking inactive pipeline off Huntington Beach were stepped up Thursday as officials conceded that a larger amount of oil has been released into the ocean than previously believed. Since Sunday, about 300 gallons have seeped from an inactive pipeline near a three-platform complex about 10 miles offshore, said Susan Hersberger, a spokeswoman for owner Aera Energy LLC of Bakersfield. The amount is 100 gallons more than first announced.

Charging that their livelihoods have been jeopardized by maritime negligence, a dozen San Pedro-based gill-net fishermen Wednesday filed a $10-million lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the owner and leaseholder of the tanker that spilled nearly 400,000 gallons of oil off Huntington Beach last week. The lawsuit, the third brought against the American Trading Transportation Co.

A task force of public and private officials said Saturday that it may take at least another week before beaches closed by the Feb. 7 oil spill can be reopened. Although the task force reached agreement on what level of oil and other hydrocarbons found on the beaches will allow their reopening, officials said that water and ground testing probably will not begin until March 7, when the cleanup effort is expected to be completed.

Oil slicks from an offshore spill crept closer to Orange County beaches Tuesday as workers recovered more than half of the 210 gallons that leaked into the ocean from a corroded pipeline. The spill began Sunday after oil seeped out of a pipeline that was shut down in June after an earlier spill. The pipeline was being cleaned when residual oil seeped from seven pinhole-size leaks.

After months of negotiations, the owner of a tanker that ran aground in 1990 and spilled more than 400,000 gallons of oil off the Huntington Beach coast has agreed to pay $16 million in damages. The money will be set aside for recreational projects in Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and county and state parks affected by the spill.