California oil spill in Pacific extends for miles, expected to hit beaches:

Not only the environmental impact to worry about, there’s at least one ship that was standing by offshore thats going to need some decon. More chaos just south of LA/LB. I heard there were plans to decommission the beta field. This will probably accelerate it.

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The anti-oil types are already showing the dead pelican. I wonder if they can admit that way more birds are killed by wind turbines than the oil industry.

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According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:
500,000 to 1 million birds a year are killed by oil production.
Right now , wind turbines kill an estimated 150,000 birds. If the number of turbines are increased by a factor of 6, the FWS estimates 1.4 million killed.

Killed by flying into buildings and windows: 1 billion.

The number of birds killed by flying into communication towers: 4 million.

Killed by cats: 1.3 billion to 4 billion.

https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds/entrapment-entanglement-drowning.php

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Facts are facts.

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Those darn cats…

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Too good a theory to pass up:

The real culprit came from a port much further away …

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The pipeline runs south along the most southern foxtrot anchorages, then turns north east of the anchorages…with the volume of ships anchored up that way, which is not the norm, its not necessarily a bad theory.

How convenient!! All those ship at the anchorage are foreign flag so what better to blame this on?
They may even have “transited over the pipeline”:

There are another possibility, but not equally convenient:

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It might be inconvenient to point at the state and federal regulators or oil companies.There are campaign contributions at stake.

Just as convenient. There are already plans to P & A the beta field. This will just accelerate it…not to mention the other small company that has the rest of the platforms in so cal (DCOR).

That pipeline is roughly 40 years old. Not sure if the one that ruptured in the santa barbara channel 6 years ago is older or newer. I wanna say its in the same ballpark age wise.

Latest:

The pipeline route should be marked on the navigation chart(s) with a safety zone and “Do Not Anchor” warning.

This is an old pipeline and the position may indeed not have been charted accurately.

Anecdote:
In the mid-1980 a jackup rig moving onto a platform put one leg on a pipeline off Nigeria and in Cabinda, Angola a Construction barge installing a tripod jacket caused a major oil spill when one pile hit a pipeline under pressure.
In both cases the field maps supplied by the Oilco showed the pipeline to be several hundred feet away and the rig/barge positioned well outside the safety zone.

On a detailed resurvey of pipeline positions it was found that the pipelines had been laid with bends, but drawn as straight lines in the field maps.
Two explanations were offered:

  • It was normal practice at the time to do this in place of having expansion bend along the line. (More difficult and costly installation)
  • It was common for the contractor to lay pipelines with bends as they were paid by the joints of pipe used.
  • In both cases the pipeline route was indicated as a straight line on both field maps and navigation charts…

PS> Both the Oilcos and the Contractors that had laid the pipes were American.

Could the same be the case off California around the same time??

I think a working system to control this suppose to have being developed. It’s taking longer than expected to be controlled and it’s causing a lot of hazard