SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Officials began to clean up a massive oil spill Friday that dumped nearly 800,000 gallons of oil and water in꧟to a California canꦦyon, making it larger — if less devastating — than the state’s last two major oil spills.
The newly revealed spill has been flowing off and on since May and has again stopped, Chevron spokeswoman Veronica Flores-Paniagua said. She and California officials said the spill is ♕not near any waterway and has not significantly affected wildlife. The last flow was Tuesday.
Chevron reported that 794,000 gallons of oil and water have leaked out of the ground where it uses steam injection to extract oil in the large Cymric Oil Field about 35 miles west of Bakersfield. The steam softens the thick crude so it can flow more readily and෴ is a different process from fracking, which breaks up underground layers of rock.
The state has issued Chevron a notice of violation ordering it to stop steam injections around t🌄he spill. The company also incre♛ased its production of oil from wells in the area. Both actions are intended to relieve underground pressure that may be forcing the mix of oil and water to the surface.
Chevron will pay for the cleanup, though the state will oversee the process, said Steve Gonzalez, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Sꦡpill Prevention and Response.
The cleanup and the investigation into what caused the oil flow were somewhat delayed as officials ensured there are no dangerous fumes or sinkholes that could trap worke💟rs or heavy equipment,💯 he said.
“At this point, they have it 🐷dammed off and they’re sucking it out, sucking the oil out,” Gonzalez said.
Environmental groups said the Chevron spill is another sign of weakened regulations under an embattled C🐎alifornia agency. Gov. Gavin Newsom this week fired the head of the state’s oil and gas division over a and amid a conflict-of-interest investigat✨ion of other division employees.
The Last Chance Alliance, which opposes California’s oil and g𝔍as industry, said the state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources adopted weaker restrictions on steam injection earlier this year, “making these operations even more dangerous.”
The group said state regulators and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year approved an exemption that removed protections 🌱from an aquifer in the Cymric Oil Field at the reꦇquest of Chevron and other oil companies.
“California’s industry-friendly oil regulator continues to provide about as much protection as a screen door on a submari🌠ne,” Hollin Kretzmann, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity and member of the Last Chance Alliance, said in a statement.
Neither Chevro🐈n nor division spokesman Don Drysdale commented on🥂 the criticism.
About 70% of the fluid is water, Chevron said, meaning about 240,000 gallons of t▨he mixture is oil.
The spill, which was , comes after a judge earlier this year fined Plains All American Pipeline nearly🎐 $3.35 million for causing what had been the worst California coa♏stal spill in 25 years.
A corroded pipeline spilled 140,000 gallons of crude oil in 2015 onto Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County, nor𒀰thwest of Los Angeles, tarring popular beaches for miles, killing wildlife and harming tourism and fishing.
In 2007, the container ship Cosco Busan leaked nearly 54,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil into San Francisco Bay after the ship hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay 🎐Bridge in thick fog.
The state’s worst spill was the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that leaked at least 80,000 bar🌺rels of crude oil into the Santa Barbara Channel. Each barrel is 42 gallons.
But the effect of this year’s Chevr𒊎on spill on birds and wildlife appears minimal, Gonzalez said. Chevron said the spill flowed into a dry stream bed, and ൲Gonzalez noted that it is unlikely to rain anytime soon.
“There’s no active waterway that it’s nearby, so thℱat’s the good news,” he said.