Oil's Aftermath

One of the incidents most responsible for jolting Americans into an awareness of the environmental crisis took place on Jan. 28, 1969. A Union Oil Co. well, six miles out in California's Santa Barbara Channel, ruptured; it gushed unchecked for eleven days, polluting 400 sq. mi. of sea with crude oil, coating beaches and apparently killing much marine life. Petroleum companies spent perhaps $5,000,000 to clean up the mess; conservationists organized to mourn and restore the despoiled region. Stewart Udall, the former Interior Secretary who authorized the sale (for $603 million) of the offshore drilling rights in the channel, termed the spill "my Bay of Pigs."

But was the apparent disaster really all that bad? To analyze the spill's long-term consequences, the Western Oil & Gas Association, in cooperation with the Federal Government, sponsored a twelvemonth, $240,000 study by the University of Southern California's Allan Hancock Foundation--with no restrictions on the type of research or publication. Last week the university released its report. The major (and unexpectedly optimistic) findings: damage to beaches, flora and fauna was "much less than predicted," and "the area is recovering well."

Info the Basin. That conclusion is especially surprising since the California study indicates that estimates of the oil spill by both Government agencies and the drilling companies (up to 3,000,000 gal.) were too low, though the real figure is not yet known. Nonetheless, the oil gushing from the channel well had little effect on sand movement. Geologist Ronald L. Kolpack points out that the Santa Barbara area experienced the heaviest rains in 40 years at the time of the spill. As a result, tons of silt washed into the channel, adhered to the oil and finally settled in the deep basin of the channel--where most of the oil now remains.

The floods complicated any long-range assessment of the ecological effects of the spill. The rain water lowered the shore line's salt content and probably swept freshly sprayed pesticides into the channel. Even so, says Dr. Dale Straughan, a pretty 31-year-old zoologist who compiled the biological part of the survey, tests by university researchers "failed to reveal any effects of oil pollution" on the channel's zooplankton and phytoplankton; similarly, sea plants and the production of fish and larvae were not lastingly affected. Although one variety of barnacle was smothered by the oil and about 4,000 sea birds (out of a local population of 12,000) perished in the slick, other species--including local seals and the migrating gray whale--escaped unharmed.

The major reason for the low animal-mortality rate, according to Dr. Straughan, is that toxins are the lightest components of oil and thus float to the water's surface where they rapidly evaporate. Her conclusion contradicts research undertaken by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. After studying the aftermath of a spill of refined oil in 1969 off West Falmouth, Dr. Max Blumer of the institute reported that the most toxic elements of oil are actually the most persistent. In rebuttal, Dr. Straughan contends that the West Falmouth spill occurred close to shore, so the toxins did not have a chance to dissipate before contaminating marine life. At Santa Barbara, the less harmful crude oil drifted for days before hitting the beaches.

Not surprisingly, the report is already being challenged by conservationists and other ocean researchers. Dr. Kristian Fauchald of U.S.C., who worked with Dr. Straughan on the project, disagreed so violently with her findings that she screamed at him, "I did not sell out to the oil companies." He and other marine experts found significant reductions in a type of sea worm and in the variety of intertidal fauna. Fauchald says, however, that it is uncertain whether the reduction is the result of oil seepage or of other factors, such as sewage, pesticides and changing salinity. Yet another critic of the report has charged that the survey techniques were too "insensitive" to detect anything but massive changes in the environment. Whether its conclusions are right or wrong, the report unquestionably adds to the surprisingly small volume of scientific data on the effect of crude oil spilled at sea.

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