Beachgoers have been irked by the tar that seems to be coating more feet lately at beaches along Santa Barbara County’s South Coast, but the source might not be what they think.
When one says oil these days, locals conjure up a picture of the May 19 pipeline leak near Refugio State Beach, where as many as 142,800 gallons of crude oil flowed down the hill and into the Pacific Ocean.
It’s safe to say there’s a heightened sense of awareness around oil, which is why some experts last week dispelled the notion that all tarballs hail from the damaged pipeline owned by Plains All American Pipeline.
The hotbed of natural underwater seeps is most likely to blame, since summertime is when the wind, tides and currents often churn up more tarballs on local beaches.
“In the summer, we tend to get something like 10 times the amount as usual,” said Dave Valentine, a UC Santa Barbara earth science and biology professor who focuses on geochemistry and studying the area’s natural seeps.
“The short answer is the amount of oil that comes up on any given beach is dependent on a handful of factors. The conditions are consistently different in the winter. When things are calm, the oil has a chance to form larger slicks.”
A larger natural oil seep appeared off Goleta Beach late last month, but choppier waters have helped break slicks into tarballs, defined by the California Department of Fish & Wildlife as dark-colored, often sticky-to-the-touch remnants of oil spills or natural oil seeps in bodies of water.
The globs tend to be the size of a dime or quarter — usually less than 10 centimeters — and can be washed off skin with soap and water, baby oil or other cleaning products.
Even the safest of beach choices — like Arroyo Burro in Santa Barbara and Butterfly in Montecito — aren’t immune from the phenomenon.
“Safe” means the beaches are not as close to the largest (or second largest) marine seep in the world, which is off UCSB between Campus Point and Coal Oil Point, Valentine said. Those seeps release some 4,000 gallons of oil per day, he said.
Other natural seeps appear in the Santa Barbara Channel or off of Carpinteria and Summerland.
Arroyo Burro and Loon Point beaches were specifically mentioned as tarball hot spots during the summer in a 2009 study conducted by the Minerals Management Service and the county’s Energy Division.
In general, the report said, tarballs accumulate faster or remain longer on all beaches during the summer and fall months. Winter storms remove beach sand and other material.
“In my opinion, I don’t really think any beach could be that protected” from tarballs, said Julia Parker, director of animal care at the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network.
She was happy to report that the nonprofit organization, which has been helping rescue and rehabilitate injured wildlife from the Refugio spill, was no longer inundated with requests. She said the network tends to get more calls to help oiled birds at beaches in Isla Vista and at Haskell’s Beach near Bacara Resort & Spa.
Tarball sightings have been sporadic and scattered across a number of beaches, mostly from El Capitán State Beach to Goleta Beach, closer to where the spill originated, said Ben Pitterle, watershed and marine program manager at Santa Barbara Channelkeeper.
Oil remnants were also reportedly seen on sand at Arroyo Burro and Leadbetter beaches in Santa Barbara, Butterfly and Miramar beaches in Montecito, and Summerland and Rincon beaches in Carpinteria.
The nonprofit Santa Barbara Channelkeeper forwards citizen complaints to the Refugio Response Unified Command, which is handling cleanup efforts along with Plains, the company responsible for the spill.
“There’s no question we’re getting more of those types of reports from the spill,” Pitterle said. “Cyclically, we do go through phases where there seems to be a lot of seep activity.
“There’s really not a good understanding of how offshore oil production is affecting seeps. Is this natural or is this not? I think those questions are really valid.
“It’s really hard to detect any patterns right now. One way we’re working to help solve this dilemma is by developing a new ongoing tar ball monitoring project. Nobody has done this quantitative survey required over a period of time.”
Pitterle was involved in a two-day blitz sampling of county beaches in early July, working alongside the U.S. Coast Guard and state Fish & Wildlife personnel.
Results from the tarball fingerprinting, which split 26 tar samples into three for testing, found just one county beach — Las Varas Beach, east of Edwards Point and southeast of El Capitán — with oil from the Refugio incident.
The sampling effort shows the practice’s inconsistencies, since one of the split tar balls tested positive for Refugio spill and the other was negative.
“We take all tar ball reports seriously,” said unified command’s Alexia Retallack, who works for California Fish & Wildlife.
She said unified command sends an outside agency employee to do sampling when there’s a higher concentration of small tar balls or larger concentration of tar and oil.
The unified command wouldn’t release results for which county beaches have tested positive for Refugio spill oil.
Valentine said his understanding is that most beaches testing positive with spill oil initially were in the four-mile stretch near Refugio, with far fewer at other Santa Barbara locations than in Ventura and further south.
Venoco and ExxonMobil were forced to shut down their operations after the spill because both companies use the Plains pipeline to transport oil — and since the county won’t let them truck it instead.
While they wait, Venoco is making an argument the company has repeatedly used to justify a need to drill new wells in the South Ellwood Oil Field: producing oil takes pressure off natural seeps, which reduces seeps overall, company spokesman Aaron McLear said.
Valentine stopped short of endorsing the claim, saying that reservoirs under pressure would act more like a vacuum to keep oil inside. However, he said, there is a correlation between decreased natural gas seepage and oil production.
Whatever is causing more tar balls, it seems like everyone would like to better monitor natural seep patterns, which is why Santa Barbara Channelkeeper wants to work with state and federal agencies to compile a better database.
“There is no normal,” Pitterle said. “Fluctuation is not atypical. Whether this new latest apparent increase is related to oil development or not, I’d be really hesitant to make any assumptions.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Gina Potthoff can be reached at gpotthoff@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
