CityofGoletaSource: City of Goleta
As part of the settlement of the 2015 Refugio Beach Oil Spill, state and federal trustee agencies for natural resources held a virtual open house on May 13, 2020. In case you missed it, a YouTube video of the open house presentations, along with PDFs of the individual presentations and FAQs is now available for public viewing at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Office of Spill Prevention and Response (CDFW-OSPR) website. Follow the link below to view the video/documents, as well as the draft Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan:
https://wildlife.ca.gov/OSPR/NRDA/Refugio
On May 19, 2015, a pipeline owned and operated by Plains All American Pipeline ruptured releasing approximately 120,000 gallons of oil along the Santa Barbara coastline, 50,000 of which entered the ocean. The incident heavily oiled beaches in the area including Refugio and El Capitan state beaches, injuring wildlife and their habitat and fisheries, in addition to loss of recreation use. Wind and oil currents pushed the oil to Ventura and as far south as Los Angeles County.
For more information contact Eric Laughlin, California Department of Fish and Wildlife at (916) 214-3279 or Ashley McConnell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at (805) 677-3301.
