A major cleanup operation has been launched to tackle a 126,000-gallon oil slick off the southern California coast, which has forcedbeaches to close and prompted officials to warn of “substantial ecological impacts.”
The slick is approximately 13 square miles in size, the U.S. Coast Guard Los Angeles said in a tweet Saturday. It added that it was 3 miles off the coast of Newport Beach, a small community 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
In a separate statement it said that it was working with a number of agencies including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response on the cleanup operation.
Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said in a tweet Saturday thatoil had already washed up onto the beachfront of Huntington Beach in Orange County.
“We’ve started to find dead birds & fish washing up on the shore,” she said, adding the location of the leak was about 5 miles off the coast of Huntington Beach and that oil was continuing to spill from a broken pipeline connected to an offshore oil rig.
The USCG said it was working alongside Beta Offshore, which operates three offshore oil platforms in the Beta Field off the California coast. Beta Offshore has not yet responded to inquiries from NBC News.
The slick has had “substantial ecological impacts” on Huntington Beach and nearby wetlands, the City of Huntington Beach said in a statement.
Skimming equipment and booms were deployed to prevent the inflow of oil into ecologically sensitive areas, the statement said. It added that it had to cancel the final day of its Pacific Airshow to facilitate clean-up operations.
Describing the situation as a “potential ecologic disaster,” Huntington Beach mayor Kim Carr told NBC Los Angeles that around 3,000 barrels of oil or 126,000 gallons had been spilled.
The Coast Guard also said it was actively monitoring for any wildlife that could have become contaminated by oil, and it asked the public to stay away from the area while the clean-up was underway.
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While the leak has not been completely stopped, the City of Huntington Beach said preliminary patching has been completed to repair the oil spill site and additional repair efforts will be attempted Sunday morning.
It added that the plume of oil was now stretching for nearly 6 nautical miles, running from the Huntington Beach pier to Newport Beach, around 5 miles south.
The city of Newport Beach said in a statement Saturday that the slick was expected to dissipate through wind, sun and wave action, but it later said it will come ashore.
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