Behind this environmental protection festival is a catastrophic oil spill

Editor’s Note:

April 22 this year is the 53rd "World Earth Day" and this year's theme is "Working together to invest in protecting the earth."

Since 1970, Earth Day has gradually become a global environmental protection event, calling on people to pay attention to the environment and protect the earth. However, behind such an environmental protection holiday is a catastrophic oil spill.

No one is more familiar with offshore oil production than the residents of Summerland, California. Since the first well drilled on the beach in 1896, locals have witnessed the evolution of crude oil production from land to deep sea.

The Summerlanders, who have always been proud of the magnificent coastal scenery of their homeland, also have complaints about the changes in their homeland. However, in the first few decades, the prosperity brought by the oil industry did benefit the residents. Perhaps in the minds of the Summerlanders at that time, those drilling platforms at the junction of the sea and the sky were at most an "unsightly" existence.

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The world becomes hell

However, the tranquility of this coastal oil town hit rock bottom in the early morning of February 5, 1969. Residents who had just woken up smelled a strong stench. Even though half a century had passed, some residents could still recall the horror they felt when they opened the door - the white waves lapping at the beach had been replaced by a thick layer of oil, and the dying seabirds on the black beach seemed like lonely souls walking in purgatory. The crude oil that should have been hidden in the seabed rock 10 kilometers away was rushing to the coast mercilessly.

Aerial view of drilling rigs | USGS - Mary C. Rabbitt / Wikipedia

The tragedy had already occurred a week ago. On January 28, due to improper safety measures, the United Petroleum A platform used a protective casing that was obviously too short during drilling operations. The crude oil, without the casing restraint, gushed out, and even a burst appeared on the sea surface about 200 meters east of the platform. To make matters worse, the pressure brought by the gushing continued to impact the sandstone structure on the seabed of the Santa Barbara Channel, and the continuous tearing caused by it produced five independent cracks.

In the following days, at least 13,000 to 16,000 cubic meters of crude oil gushed out. In the first few days, ocean currents and winds continued to push the oil away from the coastline. It was not until February 4 that a huge storm system began to affect the area, exposing this ecological disaster to the residents of Summerland without any cover.

The Summerlanders were not the only ones who witnessed the disaster. With the extensive media coverage, the world's attention was focused on this stretch of California coastline. People witnessed the Summerlanders' heroic act of rushing to the coast with straw to save themselves, and they were also worried about the dead seabirds and seals on the coast.

California sea lion dies in Santa Barbara oil spill | Los Angeles Times

At that time, people's understanding and response to marine oil spills were still very rudimentary, so there was no complete accident handling system, nor was it possible to accurately assess the impact of the accident. To this day, we still lack sufficient reliable data to show how much impact this disaster has on the environment.

According to statistics at the time, the accident caused the deaths of 3,686 seabirds and "some" marine mammals. At the time, it was believed that, considering the special geological structure, crude oil in the Santa Barbara Channel would continue to leak in small amounts under natural conditions, which should have prompted local marine life to have better adaptability to crude oil, and the microorganisms that can decompose crude oil in the seawater should also be more abundant. Although the continuous storms after the accident caused the crude oil to spread to the coast, they also sparsely distributed the crude oil density in the core area of ​​the accident to a certain extent. The impact of this ecological disaster should be limited.

A pelican covered in oil | Louisiana GOHSEP / Wikimedia

But subsequent civilian observations clearly cannot support this view. In June of that year, when reporters from Life magazine visited the seal breeding grounds on San Miguel Island, nearly 100 kilometers away from the accident site, they found at least 100 dead seals, and in the Summerland intertidal zone, the mortality rate of fixed organisms such as barnacles reached at least 90%. As for the fish death data, local fishermen can detect obvious fluctuations in the output of several economic aquatic products, but considering the severe El Niño phenomenon that year, it is difficult to distinguish the extent of the impact of the oil spill and extreme weather on fish, and it is even more unknown to what extent algae and plankton were affected.

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Oil spills cause devastation

In the half century since then, similar accidents have been repeated again and again around the world, which also provides us with many reference templates for inferring the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill: In March 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, leaking 50,000 tons of crude oil, causing pollution in a 1,600-kilometer coastal area and nearly extinction of local salmon and herring. The direct threat of crude oil toxicity and the loss of thermal insulation caused by crude oil contaminating feathers have resulted in the deaths of at least more than 250,000 water birds.

Alaska Bay oil spill: dead seabirds contaminated by oil | evostc.state.ak.us

On April 20, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico leaked and exploded, and at least 700,000 tons of crude oil formed an oil belt 160 kilometers long and 72 kilometers wide in the nearby sea area. Between 2010 and 2014, more than 1,000 dolphin carcasses were counted in the accident area. Even in a 2018 study, the disease rate of dolphins living in the Gulf of Mexico remained high, with at least 55% showing symptoms of lung infection. In severely polluted areas, the reproductive success rate of cetaceans is less than 1/4 of the normal value.

The endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle, which only nests and lays eggs in the Gulf of Mexico, was also hit hard. In the year of the accident, at least half of the Kemp's ridley sea turtles showed signs of contact with oil when they came ashore. The number of adult female sea turtles decreased by 20% that year, and the number of Kemp's ridley sea turtles that died directly from crude oil pollution reached 1,150. Even in the deep waters below 1,500 meters in the Gulf of Mexico, at least 40 dead cold-water coral colonies were found.

Satellite photo of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill | NASA/GSFC, MODIS

In 2018, the Sanchi, fully loaded with Iranian condensate, collided and sank in the East my country Sea, spilling 137,000 tons of crude oil. In April 2021, a collision occurred at the Qingdao Chaolian Island anchorage, and 9,400 tons of diluted asphalt loaded on the tanker Symphony leaked, affecting a coastline of 786 kilometers, including some of the core stopover islands on the Australia-Siberia migratory bird route...

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The problem is getting worse

When people today discuss the Santa Barbara oil spill, they always like to regard it as a milestone in the world's environmental movement. On that morning in 1969, the crisis suddenly appeared at the doorstep of Summerland residents. They tried their best and with all their courage, but the price was irreversible. This catastrophic oil spill became a fuse, prompting people to reflect and take action. In order to prevent the world from being so hasty, people started the "World Earth Day" event in 1970. This festival also means that environmental protection has become a public concept and has gradually gained public recognition.

But when we look back at the accidents over the past half century, we can't help but feel confused. It seems that the situation has not changed with the improvement of public awareness. In fact, it is becoming more serious.

Catching Kemp's ridley sea turtles contaminated by oil in the Gulf of Mexico | NOAA's National Ocean Service

Of course, this is not the case. At the time of the Santa Barbara oil spill, people had little idea of ​​the impact their activities would have on the environment. Today, we have accumulated a lot of experience in environmental assessment, accident prevention and emergency response for major projects, which can certainly be called progress.

But the problem is that half a century later, the depth and breadth of our impact on the environment are no longer the same as before, so that even with new technologies and strict regulations, we cannot completely eliminate these negative impacts - our population has exploded and productivity has developed rapidly, which has led to energy and land demands that are several times greater than those of the past, and has also brought about more pollution emissions and habitat destruction. In other words, people's environmental awareness is growing, but it is far from enough to solve current environmental problems.

Striped dolphins struggle to navigate the oil patch in the Gulf of Mexico | NOAA's National Ocean Service

If the Santa Barbara oil spill fired the starting gun for the environmental movement, then today we may need a charge as we face more pressing environmental issues.

Author: A man is wandering

Editor: pee pee shrimp

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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