Oil slick stretches hundreds of feet at popular Calif. beach

New video shows a large oil slick, potentially 200 feet long, approaching a popular beach in the wealthy town of Montecito, according to researchers investigating ocean pollution. 

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Harry Rabin, aresearch and field adviser for the nonprofit Heal the Ocean, said they have seen multiple large oil slicks in recent days, with the first reported about 15 miles to the north near UC Santa Barbara last month.

“The wind and currents are taking it exactly where we’re seeing it, from that area all the way down to Butterfly Beach,” he told SFGATE. Rabin is part of a team at the nonprofit investigating the spread of oil in the area.

Rabin said the amount of oil seen this week near the popular beaches appeared higher than normal to him and “they hadn’t seen that much oil blanket area in over 30 years” at UCSB.

Butterfly Beach is a popular area close to Interstate 101 with sandy shores and an usual east-west configuration. More importantly, it sits at the edge of the continent next to some of the most prime real estate in the nation and the soon-to-be-reopened Four Seasons Resort the Biltmore owned by Beanie Babies billionaire Ty Warner.

Rabin said they “can’t pinpoint” if the oil slicks, which he estimated to be 100 to 200 feet in length, are from natural seepage from the ocean floor or leaks from capped oil wells in the region. 

The California Office of Spill Prevention and Response said it sent a field team to respond to multiple incidents this weekend and “determined the releases were consistent with natural seeps in the area.” The office said crews “will continue to monitor the situation.”

Rabin said the only way to definitively tell is to take oil from all the capped wells and check “oil fingerprinting” for a match with the current oil in the water. Experts can look for a substance called alkanes in the oil that will correspond with the pipe or well the oil was contained in.

Santa Barbara County spokesperson Kelsey Gerckens Buttitta told SFGATE in a statement the county has had no reports of oil releases from wells or rigs. She said government experts did not observe anything “out of the ordinary.”

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“Environmental Health has no information on any potential sources other than nature,” she wrote. “Environmental Health Staff is out on these beaches collecting routine ocean water quality samples for bacteria, and also will report back on their observations.”

Despite the pricey ZIP code, the area has long had to deal with tar and oil due to both natural features and offshore wells built in the late 1800s off the now iconic coastline. While these wells aren’t in use anymore, many were not capped or closed properly and continue to leak oil, Rabin said. 

He said there are 400 former oil wells in the Summerland area, which neighbors Montecito just to the south. Rabin said many of these wells were not capped properly when they were shut down through 1940, and Heal the Ocean is assisting the State Lands Commission as it identifies and caps leaking wells.

“You have 200 straws going into the earth that were plugged by various means, you know, stones, laundry, sands, dynamite, concrete, over all the years,” he said. “… Oil is going to flow.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 12:12 p.m., June 2, to reflect that Heal the Ocean is assisting the State Lands Commission in capping leaking wells.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2 p.m., June 2, to correct Harry Rabin’s job title.