People began smelling oil off the Orange County coast on Friday afternoon. By Saturday, an oil slick was visible, with boaters as well as dolphins and other marine life moving through it. Then Saturday night, oil begin to wash onto beaches and marshland
Officials say at least 130,000 gallons have spilled. As of Sunday morning, officials said the leak was patched but not completely stopped.
At 12:18 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard put out a tweet saying it is "responding to an oil slick reported to be approximately 13 square miles in size, 3 miles off Newport Beach." But Saturday evening, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach officials said the leak was "major" and that oil would reach the coast that night. Huntington then closed beaches.At 11:07 p.m., the Coast Guard tweeted: "A unified command consisting of Beta Offshore, the Coast Guard and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response has been established to respond to an oil spill off the coast of Newport Beach.
The Santa Barbara spill was the worst in the nation’s history — until 20 years later, when the Exxon Valdez dumped 11 million gallons of crude off the coast of Alaska.On the afternoon of Feb. 7, 1990, the oil tanker American Trader ran over its anchor in relatively shallow water off Huntington Beach, spilling nearly 417,000 gallons of crude and fouling popular beaches along the Orange County coast. The oil killed fish and about 3,400 birds.
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