It’s went from 5000 to 10000 and now it’s 20 thousand. I guess 20,000 gallons sound much better than 500 barrels.
The pipeline, built in 1991 and designed to carry about 150,000 barrels of oil per day, is owned by Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline, which said in a statement that it shut down the pipe. The culvert was also blocked to prevent more oil from flowing into the ocean, the company said.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-pipeline-santa-barbara-coast-20150519-story.html
pictures at link
Really that is not much oil.
Exxon Mobil offered to assist with clean-up efforts on Tuesday but was told its aid was not yet needed, a company spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/california-pipeline-ruptures-leaks-oil-into-pacific-ocean-1432088366
Clean-up efforts started Tuesday, with 1,500 feet of boom—a kind of floating curtain—deployed on the water to trap oil floating at the surface. So far, only 20 barrels of oil have been skimmed off the water, according to the Coast Guard.
“I want to manage your expectations. This could take some time,” Capt. Williams said, adding that the unified joint command responding to the spill does not intend to use chemical dispersants to dissolve the oil in the water.
We should remind folks that Refugio beach for over 10,000 years was covered with oil from thousands of natural seeps in the ocean floor. The seeping oil only reduced in the 1960s after offshore drilling reduced the pressure on the oil deposit but is still leaking from underground sources to this day. This spill is miniscule compared to history but the media needs something to attract viewers so they will not tell you the "whole truth".
I quote from http://nature.berkeley.edu/…/e…/projects/2001final/Owens.pdf
"Of the 1.9 billion gallons of oil entering the world’s oceans each year, 1.9% of this occurs naturally in the Santa Barbara channel off the coast of Santa Barbara, California."
That's 36 million gallons from natural seeps. Or you could say this spill amounts to .0044% of the total oil placed in the channel by natural sources.