An oil slick more than three kilometers wide was spotted by Californian authorities off the coast of Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles, the city's municipal council announced on Friday March 8.
“Earlier today I was informed of an oil spill off the coast of Huntington Beach
,” City Councilman Don Wagner explained on X (formerly Twitter).
“Early estimates are about 2 miles wide.”
According to other members of the municipal council, this slick could come from an oil exploitation platform.
An investigation has been opened.
The city, often nicknamed “Surf City,” has not yet announced any beach closures and the Coast Guard is assessing the situation.
The slick was first spotted Thursday evening, the coast guard explained in a statement at midday.
For the moment
“no source has been identified”
to establish the origin of this leak.
Authorities
“have engaged an oil spill response organization to collect oil at sea and are working to identify possible impacts on the coastline
,” the coast guard said.
The region had already suffered an oil spill in 2021 due to the rupture of an underwater oil pipeline, which spilled tens of thousands of liters of crude oil into the ocean.
The disaster caused the closure of 24 km of beaches between Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach, and a ban on fishing.
Many dead birds and fish, sometimes covered in fuel oil, had washed up on the coast.