U.S. Battle Against Huge Oil Slick

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31904, 4 February 1969, Page 15

U.S. Battle Against Huge Oil Slick

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SANTA BARBARA (California), February 3. The prospects of avoiding major damage from a huge oil slick which has already smudged some of southern California’s finest beaches appear encouraging today, the United States Coast Guard reports.

The Secretary of the Interior (Mr Walter Hickel) flew from Washington today for an on-the-spot inspection of the slick, which has killed sea birds and marine life but was partially controlled yes-

terday with a plastic “sea curtain.”

The Coast Guard statement this afternoon said: “The prospects of avoiding major damage from the offshore oilwell leak now appear encouraging, but a sudden shift in the weather could radically alter this outlook. “Part of the oil-mass leaking from the ocean floor of the Union Oil Company’s offshore well is now moving down the coast to the sea through the east end of the Santa Barbara channel. “At the present time the oil spill situation is considered to be under reasonable control." Meanwhile, Federal, State and local authorities have joined Union, Oil in an all-out effort to meet the emergency, and drillers on the well platform, six miles offshore, continued their efforts to seal the oil and gas bubbling from ocean-bottom fissures.

Adulterous Women.—Prison sentences should be retained for Italian women who committed adultery—because husbands and wives are not necessarily equal, according to a Jesuit priest. He was attacking the abolition by Italy’s Constitutional Court last December 19 of a law under which women could be imprisoned for adultery while their husbands could be unfaithful with impunity.— Rome, Feb. 3.