The two-mile long spill underscores a disturbing reality with oil spills and other hazardous releases – as many as a dozen a day are reported to emergency hotlines just in California, and the public usually never knows.
Southern California is dealing with its worst oil leak in recent history after more than 100,000 gallons of oil leaked into the Pacific Ocean.As millions of Californians descended on Orange County's famed beaches on a blazing hot Saturday, they had no idea a massive oil spill happened the night before.
The two-mile long spill underscores a disturbing reality with oil spills and other hazardous releases – as many as a dozen a day are reported to emergency hotlines just in California, and the public usually never knows. But by the time the first report was made of an oil spill off southern California on Friday, according to a copy of the report obtained by USA TODAY/The Desert Sun, it was already two nautical miles long and 100 meters wide. And the public wouldn't be told until nearly 24 hours later, after millions of people had gone to nearby beaches on a sunny Saturday.
"Who's going to get a fax on a Friday night? Who even gets faxes? That report is going nowhere," said Deborah Gordon, a Brown University professor and senior fellow at the Rocky Mountain Institute.