Huntington Beach Oil Spill
We were all horrified at the recent news of the oil spill off the coast of Huntington Beach in Orange County and I decided to go down there a few days after the news broke to photograph it for various news organizations I work with. Based on the reports I had heard, I was prepared for the worse, and decided to make my first stop the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, a place I had frequently photographed and had a lot of concern about. Thankfully, the wetlands were spared as the currents took most of the oil south of the Huntington Beach Pier, so I made my way down the coast a bit to see what I could find.
I spotted a clean up crew in a small inlet called the Talbert Marsh. It is a thin strip of wetlands running parallel to the coastline, and the first thing I saw from the bridge crossing it was a blue boom with oil sheen on both sides of it. That’s not a good indication the boom was doing its intended job. I walked down a ways and could see the cleanup crew in their white hazmat suits and orange vests. They were working mostly from small skiffs, cleaning up the oil that had washed up along the shoreline of the marsh.
They were using white towels to literally mop up the oil blobs that had turned to sticky tar once it exited the water. Stacks of clean towels lined the road behind them as did the large plastic bags that they used to put the dirty towels into. They also made use of white and yellow booms which acted as a dragnet to attract the oil still floating in the water. It seemed like slow methodical work and would probably take days to complete, possibly longer if new oil leaked into the channel.
As I left the area I could see a variety of birds standing next to the water. They were all deliberately staying out of it, except for one poor duck who was flapping its wings frantically in an obvious attempt to rid itself of the oil that had most likely attached to its wings.
Across the way, media vans lined PCH to shoot the cleanup activity from the other side the marsh. I ventured over to take a few shots from there as well and quickly got into several conversations with some journalists as to where the other spills might be. As bad as the initial pictures we saw of the oil lining the local beaches, the fact was that seemed to be isolated in several spots, the majority of the beaches I was seeing were clean, thankfully. But I went in search of some locations that might be impacted.
I drove down a ways to Newport Beach, expecting to see a closed off beach and potential oil damage. What I found was an otherwise normal looking day at the beach. Hundreds of beachgoers were playing on the sand and even swimming and frolicking in the surf. I walked out a ways to get a closer look at the water and shoreline, and ended up standing there in some disbelief as to what I was witnessing. I began wondering who was crazy: me for thinking this might be some pretty risky behavior, or the beachgoers for pretending a major oil spill wasn't contaminating the water they were swimming in.
As I left I saw a broken and trampled sign saying the water was closed due to the oil spill. It kind of said it all.
I made my way to the mouth of the Santa Ana River and saw another cleanup crew. They had just finished creating a large sand berm to block off the river from the ocean, evidently there was a concern that the oil could float upstream and cause more damage. They were also carefully going though the sand and picking up and removing small blobs of tar that had washed ashore. So far this was the only evidence of oil I had seen on a beach.
As I left and prepared to return home, the skies darkened, the rain began to sprinkle, loud booms of thunder rang out, and quick blasts of lightening danced on the horizon. My last shot was of a young boy standing on the sand berm watching the show. A surreal ending to a surreal day.
I included two shots I took a number of years ago on another assignment that took me out into the Catalina Channel one night, For all I know one of these derricks could be the cause of the leak. I was also incredibly fortunate to see a pod of dolphins swim in the shadow of one of the derricks, a powerful reminder of the awful impact this disaster could possibly have that we can’t even see.