Pipeline Leak Spills Crude Oil on Huntington Beach Shoreline

HUNTINGTON BEACH â€”  A half-mile stretch of beach was closed Thursday after a pipeline leak of crude oil washed down a storm drain and about a barrel of oil contaminated the shore near Golden West Street.

Lifeguards spotted the spill--which totaled about 210 gallons--about 6:45 a.m. when oil reached the surf line, where it was whipped into a brown froth, said Martha Werth, Huntington Beach fire spokeswoman.

No injuries or damage to wildlife were reported, Werth said.

“We closed the beach as a precautionary measure,� Werth said, adding that only about a barrel--roughly 42 gallons of the 210 gallons spilled--had washed into the water.

The cause of the leak in the pipeline owned by CalResources LLC, a Shell Oil affiliate, has not been determined, a Cal-Resources spokeswoman said. About five barrels of crude oil leaked near an oil well at Walnut Avenue and Golden West Street, about a block from the ocean.

The oil traveled from the well onto the street at Walnut and Golden West, where it went down a storm drain. Some of it washed onto the beach and eventually into the ocean.

CalResources dispatched a cleanup crew that included a bulldozer, which immediately swept the oil-tainted sand into piles, where it was transferred into sandbags and removed.

“Our beach cleanup was done by 9:30 a.m.,� said Susan Hersberger, a CalResources spokeswoman in Bakersfield. “The second phase is to clean out any residual oil remaining in the storm drain, and then we will clean up the intersection at Walnut.�

CalResources owns the large oil field extending north of the corner of Golden West and Pacific Coast Highway. About 7,200 barrels of crude oil is produced a day at the oil field in Huntington Beach, Hersberger said.

She said the oil that leaked consisted of a combination of water and crude oil.

“Of that, no more than about a barrel got as far as the beach,� Hersberger said. “[Fire officials] don’t think the frothy liquid got out beyond the high tide area.�

Lifeguard Claude Panis was patrolling in the area of Golden West and the beach about 6:45 a.m. when he smelled a petroleum-like odor and discovered an oil slick at the base of a cliff off Golden West, Lifeguard Steve Davidson said.

Panis called for help and was told that firefighters were a few blocks inland repairing a broken oil pipe, lifeguards said.

Thomas Napoli, a environmental scientist with the state Department of Fish and Game, said that a combination of high tide and wave action had helped the oil to disperse into the surf.

“We will return [Friday] and dig up test trenches to see how invertebrates such as sand crabs fared,� Napoli said.

In addition to city firefighters, emergency crews responding included the Coast Guard, Fish and Game and a Huntington Beach hazardous-materials crew who were still working late Thursday to finish the cleanup.

* Times staff writer Thao Hua contributed to this report.