The Unified Command concluded its response to an oil sheen noticed offshore of Huntington Beach, California on Monday, however the supply of the oil stays unclear.
Over the weekend, cleanup crews recovered roughly 85 gallons of product from offshore restoration efforts and eliminated roughly 1,050 kilos of oily waste/sand and tar balls from the shoreline.
The U.S. Coast Guard and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Office of Spill Prevention and Response (CDFW-OSPR) collected samples from the offshore sheen and tar balls alongside the shoreline to assist decide the supply of the oil. Analyses by CDFW-OSPR’s Petroleum Chemistry Lab had been unable to definitively determine the oil supply.
However, the preliminary laboratory outcomes of the oil samples collected verify that the discharge is evenly weathered crude oil and never a refined product like gasoline or diesel. They additionally point out that the samples are in keeping with native crude oil with traits of the Monterey Formation and never imported crude oil that could be introduced by ship to California.
The preliminary laboratory outcomes point out that the oil samples analyzed from this incident are extra attribute of freshly produced oil than closely weathered oil, which is related to typical pure seeps. The lab outcomes had been additionally inconsistent with archived samples from oil platforms within the space. While a discharge of produced water from Platform Elly was reported on the morning of March 8, the traits of the produced water don’t align with what was noticed from the sheen.
