Wind Pushes Oil Towards Beaches

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31906, 6 February 1969, Page 11

Wind Pushes Oil Towards Beaches

ffiZ Press Assn—Copyright) SANTA BARBARA (California), Feb 5.

A change in winds threatened to wash a huge reddish-brown oil slick across the white sands of this resort’s beaches yesterday while oi! companies ended their brief moratorium on off-shore drilling. The slick, fed at the rate of nearly 1000 gallons an hour from an offshore oil well in the Santa Barbara Channel,

i was pushed to within two 'miles of the beaches by the 'onshore winds. : The oil has already encircled Anacapa Island, off the Ventura County coast, heavily coating the island's entire shoreline and threatening a colony of seals. Oil also lapped on to the eastern beaches of a second channel island, Santa Cruz, 23 miles off Santa Barbara. About seven miles of beaches along the Southern (Californian mainland also {have been gummed by the oil.

I The six oil companies working in the channel were given approval yesterday to resume drilling after an emergency review of their procedures, said Mr Eugene Standley, chief Interior Department engineer on the scene. Mr Standley said more frequent testing of blow-out prevention devices, more rigid procedures on drilling mud and installation of additional casing were required as the conditions of the approval. All of the companies agreed to them, he said. : A spokesman for Union Oil 'Company, which owns the (leaking well, said progress (was being made in sealing off i the well.

The leak began last Tuesday when an undersea oil geyser erupted while a drill bit was being changed. A valve dropped into the well casing to seal the lea v only diverted the oil which began oozing up from nearby fissures and oil-bearing sands on the ocean floor.

Greek* Protest.—Riot police used batons yesterday to drive more than 100 young demonstrators from the entrance to the Greek pavilion at West Berlin’s International Agricultural Exhibition. They were protesting against the presence at the opening ceremony of Mr Alexandra Matheqs, the Greek Agricul ture Minister.—West Berlin Feb. 3.