Scientists are warning of long-term environmental damage to California’s coast caused by this week’s oil spill, despite a ramped-up effort to contain and clean up a leak which now stretches over 11 miles of coastline.



By seeping into sediment, reefs and beaches, some of the oil may become invisible but cause lasting harm by “smothering” organisms in what had been a pristine eco-system, said Phyllis Grifman, associate director of the USC Sea Grant Program.

“The consequences of what you can’t see are as important as what you can see,” Grifman told the Guardian. “You can’t ever get it all out. There are so many nooks and crannies where the oil can hide.”

The warning on Friday came amid fresh revelations about the safety standards and oversight of the company which owns the pipeline that ruptured on Tuesday, spewing more than 100,000 gallons of crude on to coastal lands and into the Pacific off Santa Barbara.

Plains All American Pipeline, the Houston-based company which runs the pipeline, is the only operator in Santa Barbara County to operate outside the regulatory oversight of county energy planners and safety officers, it was reported. The anomaly meant Plains was not obliged to equip the pipeline with an automatic shutdown valve in case of rupture, said the Santa Barbara Independent.

The 24in-wide underground pipe was carrying 1,300 barrels an hour, below its maximum capacity of 2,000 barrels an hour, when the leak was detected on Tuesday morning. It is not known what caused the 2ft-diameter rupture – nor how long it gushed before being manually shut down.

Plains All American has collected 175 federal safety and maintenance violations since 2006, ranking it among the worst violators listed by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration, a federal agency. It surpassed all but four of more than 1,700 operators in reporting safety and maintenance infractions.

A bird covered in oil spreads its wings as it sits on a rock near Refugio state beach on Friday. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The number of cleanup workers was expected to more than double from 300 to 700 on Friday, bolstering efforts on land and sea to contain the leak and rescue wildlife trapped in black goo.

A fleet of 18 vessels operating a boom had skimmed 9,500 gallons of oily water from the ocean by Thursday night, according to Plains All American.

Captain Jennifer Williams of the coast guard hailed an “overwhelming” response from the public to volunteer but said only trained responders and scientists were needed for the moment. Speaking at a news conference, she urged patience.

“Cleanup doesn’t happen overnight,” she said. “You may see some progress early on, maybe in the first week or two. But these types of things continue on for perhaps even months.”

California’s governor, Jerry Brown, has declared a state of emergency in Santa Barbara County, in order to cut red tape and facilitate the mobilisation of resources.

Five pelicans have been rescued and taken to a facility in Santa Barbara.

Officials closed fishing and shellfish harvesting for a mile east and west of Refugio beach and deployed booms to protect the nesting and foraging habitat of the snowy plover and the least tern, both endangered shore birds. The coastal area is habitat for seals, sea lions and whales, which are now migrating north through the area.

Crews will remove visible oil but tides created a shifting, dynamic environment which would conceal some oil, affecting “tonnes and tonnes of microscopic organisms”, said Grifman. “When it’s smothering, oil has significant effects on the metabolism and feeding of delicate organisms that live in the sediment.”

Dave Valentine, a professor of microbiology and geochemistry at UC Santa Barbara who has assessed the spill by boat, echoed the concern about less-visible effects on the seafloor.

“The impacts are not because of its size so much as its proximity to shore,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

Legal experts estimated the spill could cost Plains All American Pipeline $500,000 to $2m in penalties under the Clean Water Act. Under federal law the company must also pay for the cleanup and restoration.

Greg Armstrong, the Texan firm’s chief executive, apologised during a visit to the site on Wednesday.

“We deeply, deeply regret that this incident has occurred at all,” he said. “We apologise for the damage that it’s done to the wildlife and to the environment.”

Armstrong vowed the company would continue cleaning up until “everything has been restored to normal”.

That did little to assuage anger. A protest rally in Santa Barbara on Thursday bristled with denunciations and placards such as “Fossil Fuels: Dumb and Dumber”, “One Slick Too Many” and “Get Oil Out”.

Oil covers rocks near Refugio state beach on Friday. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

There will probably be further resentment – and questions – following the Santa Barbara Independent’s report that Plains All American Pipeline avoided regulatory oversight from county energy planners and safety officers, the result of a court victory the company won more than 20 years ago.

“We’re flying blind,” the county energy division director, Kevin Drude, told the paper.

Najmedin Meshkati, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, said the company’s exemption from county scrutiny reflected a patchwork variable and in some cases ineffective regulatory oversight.



“This is yet one more testament that in light of lax or nonexistent oversight it is the company’s own proactive safety culture that is the last resort for protecting the public and environment.”

The company was, however, subject to federal regulation. It said the pipeline, built in 1991, had no previous problems and was thoroughly inspected in 2012. It was tested again about two weeks ago but the results have not yet been analysed.

The last oil spill off the Gaviota coast was in 1997, from a break in the undersea pipeline that carries oil from Platform Irene to a processing plant near Lompoc – a break allegedly made worse by human error.

A faulty weld caused the pipe to rupture. Unlike the Plains All American pipeline, the line was equipped with an automatic shutdown valve. According to a lawsuit filed by the county of Santa Barbara, the platform operator manually overrode the shutdown, sending more oil through the ruptured line. More than 6,800 gallons of thick crude spilled before the mistake was corrected.

The spill – about a third as big as the latest one – washed up on 21 miles of coastline, blackening Surf Beach on the Vandenberg air force base.