Seeps Near Santa Barbara May Be Key to Oil Mystery

Oil has been seeping at a rapid rate over the last three weeks from the ocean floor off Santa Barbara, offering tantalizing clues into the mystery oil patches that have injured or killed 1,500 birds.

Scientists at UC Santa Barbara discovered the leakage at the Coal Oil Point seep field, known for its rich oil deposits that continually seep to the surface. Oil emissions appear to have more than doubled the normal flow of 4,200 gallons a day since the powerful storms of early January.

But the experts aren’t sure why more oil is seeping or whether the storms are connected.

“There’s a lot more oil coming out, and it’s going somewhere,” said Ira Leifer, a research scientist at UC Santa Barbara who has been studying the seep field since 1994.

Leifer and his colleagues believe the Coal Oil Point seepage may be linked to the birds because researchers on Jan. 17, a week after the storms, spotted an oil slick on the ocean’s surface around Santa Barbara that was headed in an easterly direction.

About that time, oil-covered birds began washing ashore on beaches in Ventura. Over the next few days, oil-stained birds came ashore as far south as Huntington Beach.

“The currents were in the correct direction for the seep potentially to have made a contribution,” Leifer said. “Normally [oil slicks] head west, but for some reason the current was an eastern one. Usually, oil from the Coal Oil Point seep doesn’t travel that far south.”

The UC Santa Barbara research offers a powerful new theory to state officials trying to determine the source of the oil patches. Officials said the leak is the worst in California since the 1990 American Trader oil tanker spill off the Orange County coast.

Most of the birds collected by wildlife rescue workers were Western grebes, shorebirds that seldom venture past the wave break. That was one of the reasons investigators with the state Department of Fish and Game believed the oil may have emanated from a ruptured pipeline inland along the Ventura River. Many of the first injured birds were found on a beach near the river’s mouth.

Although samples from the Coal Oil Point seep initially provided the closest match to oil in the birds’ feathers, investigators downplayed its significance because the feather oil appeared too weathered to have come from a fresh seep. What’s more, it didn’t make sense that oil from seeps 34 miles north of Ventura would travel so far south.

In most cases, oil from natural seeps is swept out to sea and dispersed in the ocean.

Indeed, state officials last week said they doubted the oil came from natural seepage and were therefore looking at the possibility that the storms had damaged a capped well or operating pipeline, causing oil to flow into the ocean.

But UC Santa Barbara scientists believe Coal Oil Point should be the prime suspect in the oil leak mystery. Last week they submitted a fresh sample from the seep to Fish and Game’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response. Results may not be available for several weeks.

While investigators have been focusing on an inland well as the cause, a Fish and Game spokeswoman said nothing has been ruled out.

“Natural seeps are still considered a potential source,” spokeswoman Dana Michaels said. “It could be a leak on shore or something that was dumped accidentally from a vessel offshore. It’s all up in the air.”

Fish and Game officials are scheduled to meet Thursday to decide whether to continue the investigation. They have estimated the cost so far at $1.5 million.

Leifer said the larger amounts of oil seeping from the field may be the result of increased gas pressure under the seabed triggered by storms, or the storms may have scoured the seabed, opening fractures and removing tar that blocked some pathways.

Since those storms, new areas of seepage within the field have been found, Leifer said. The Coal Oil Point seep field, which has been active for tens of thousands of years, would fit into a six-mile-by-three-mile rectangle, with about 5% of it containing seeps, Leifer said.

The heavy volume of oil bubbling into the water, Leifer said, means the gunk is traveling to places not normally affected by emissions from the seep field, affecting marine life ill-equipped to deal with it.