Plains All American Pipeline provided the following update as cleanup operations continued near Goleta, Calif. This update is for the work period from Wednesday, June 17, through Thursday, June 18, 2015, and is attributable to Patrick Hodgins, senior director, Safety & Security, Plains All American Pipeline, who is serving as the Plains Incident Commander and its representative within Unified Command.
Plains deeply regrets that this unfortunate accidental release occurred, and we are sorry for the resulting impact to the environment and wildlife, as well as for any disruption caused to residents and visitors. Plains is committed to doing everything in our power to make this right.
The total number of people working on the response across the five work zones and in the Incident Command Post rose from around 910 on Wednesday to about 950 on Thursday. This included nearly 780 people on Wednesday and approximately 850 people on Thursday in the field, and about 110 people on Wednesday and about 130 people on Thursday, including federal, state and local agency partners, were managing operations in the command center,.
The following is an update on activity in the work zones:
Water
- As all visible pipeline oil has been removed from the water, and cleanup operations on the water have been suspended. Monitoring will be conducted on a periodic basis to determine whether additional activities are warranted.
- Out of an abundance of caution, 200 feet of boom is being maintained to protect areas of cultural significance.
Beaches
- Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT) experts conducted their regular shoreline cleanup assessments to direct the deployment of work crews according to cleanup objectives, which were pre-determined by Unified Command for this stage of the recovery efforts. The SCAT teams are made up of federal, state and third-party scientists trained in assessing shoreline oiling and determining appropriate cleanup methods.
- About 600 workers contributed to beach cleanup activities each day. Work crews collected lightly oiled seaweed and kelp from the shoreline as well as manually cleaned oil from the rocks and cobble.
- SCAT teams have determined that 91% of the affected shoreline has met the end-point cleanup objectives for this stage of the recovery efforts. Clean areas will continue to be monitored to determine whether additional work might be necessary.
Bluffs
- In the area south of the southbound 101, work crews continued to make progress and are nearing completion of the initial removal of oiled soil.
Culvert
- We have completed the initial cleanup and are continuing to monitor the area to determine whether additional work is necessary.
Release Site
- As soon as the remaining activities conclude and testing confirms the oil has been removed from the soil in the area, we will cover the exposed section of pipe with clean soil.
- The purge of Line 901 was completed Thursday without incident.
Claims
- For those who have questions or who would like to submit a claim, please call
866-753-3619. We are actively addressing claims as they are received.
For more information, please visit www.plainsline901response.com.
(Note: Effective June 12, 2015, Plains began providing updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with each report containing information since the prior report.)