Slick Policy: Environmental and Science Policy in the Aftermath of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill

By Teresa Sabol Spezio

In January 1969, the blowout on an offshore oil platform off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, and the resulting oil spill proved to be a transformative event in pollution control and the nascent environmental activism movement. It accelerated the advancement of federal government policies and would change the way the federal government managed environmental pollution. Over the next three years, Congress worked to pass laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act, and revolutionized the way that the United States dealt with environmental pollution. At the same time, scientists developed methods to detect chemical pollution that had been discharged into rivers and streams by industrial facilities.

Slick Policy presents an original and in-depth history of the 1969 Santa Barbara spill. Teresa Sabol Spezio provides a background of water pollution control, government oversight of federally-funded projects, and chemical detection methods in place prior to the spill. She then shows how scientists and politicians used public outrage over the spill to implement wide-ranging changes to federal environmental and science policy, and demonstrates the advancements to offshore oil drilling, pollution technology, and water protection law that resulted from these actions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Release date: May 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9780822983361

Book preview

HISTORY OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

MARTIN V. MELOSI AND JOEL A. TARR, EDITORS

SLICK POLICY

Environmental and Science Policy in the Aftermath of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill

TERESA SABOL SPEZIO

University of Pittsburgh Press

Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260

Copyright © 2018, University of Pittsburgh Press

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Printed on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-6532-9

ISBN 10: 0-8229-6532-1

Cover photo by Robert Sollen. Photo Courtesy of UCSB Library Collections.

Cover design by Melissa Dias-Mandoly

ISBN-13: 978-0-8229-8336-1 (electronic)

For Michael

the person who lights my way, shares my dreams,

and makes me laugh

Image: MAP 1. Santa Barbara County and Southern California. Map by MollyMaps.Image: MAP 2. Oil platforms in the Outer Continental Shelf near Santa Barbara. Map by MollyMaps.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Preface: Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm: The Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969

INTRODUCTION: THE SANTA BARBARA OIL SPILL OF 1969

PART 1: PRE-1969 ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENCE POLICY

1. COASTAL WATERS AND OIL DRILLING

2. SMELL, TASTE, SIGHT, DISEASE: POLLUTION DETECTION UNTIL THE MID-1960S

3. FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY?

4. WHO IS IN CHARGE OF WATER POLLUTION CONTROL?

A GALLERY OF IMAGES

PART 2: THE SPILL

5. THE SANTA BARBARA SPILL: THE FIRST TEN DAYS

PART 3: POST-SPILL ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENCE POLICY

6. FROM AN AMORPHOUS CONCERN TO A NATIONAL MOVEMENT

7. CONFLICT OVER A PISMO CLAM: CHANGES IN POLLUTION DETECTION

8. EDMUND MUSKIE: THE CLEAN WATER CHAMPION

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I BELIEVE THE IMPETUS for this book started before I can remember. My mother has two constant stories about me. The first story has one line, You were born an adult. As the youngest of seven loud, boisterous, and opinionated children, I spent the first few years of my life watching, listening, and making as much noise as my older siblings. So I have no doubt that this changed the way I interacted with the world when I was old enough to talk and reason. The second story revolves around water. I grew up in the city of Pittsburgh; not a place with droughts and water shortages. My mother says that when she would leave the water running while cleaning dishes and other things, I would constantly go behind her back to turn off the water. Then I would scold her with the line, You’re wasting water! I was an environmentalist before I knew what that was. By the time I was in high school, I wanted to be a chemical engineer even though I did not know any chemical engineers or what a chemical engineer did. I just knew I liked chemistry and in my solidly lower-middle-class family, you went to college to learn a trade and get a job. Being a historian was not even in my field of vision. Regardless, no one ever told me a girl could not be a chemical engineer. So I earned a degree in chemical engineering and spent ten years working full time as an environmental engineer. As a practicing environmental engineer, I inspected and audited every type of industry one can imagine, cleaned up hazardous waste sites, permitted a water filtration plant, wrote spill response plans and sustainability plans, and learned everything I could about the history of the development of environmental regulations. During that time, I came to terms with the ethical decisions one needs to make when working for the government and corporations. I also knew I was not particularly happy with my choice of professions. First I thought about becoming an environmental lawyer. As I was making that decision, my sister Carolyn and her colleague and my former landlord, Ira Kirschbaum, convinced me to do ANYTHING ELSE. So I need to thank them for forcing me to realize that I love history so maybe I should study to be a historian.

Since I was interested in the environment, I decided to first enroll in a master’s program in environmental studies. So, I enrolled in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Oregon. There, so many people helped me become a better writer and a more concise thinker. I first need to thank Matthew Dennis for his kindness. My first paper on Vine Deloria’s Red Earth, White Lies was terrible but Matt saw something in that paper and he worked with me along with Jeff Ostler and Suzanne Clark to take my good ideas and create a better and clearer writer. In the Environmental Studies Program I have so many people to thank, especially Jonathan Plummer, Jeremy Madsen, and Patrick Hurley for the long philosophical and practical discussions about environmental issues. Also, a tip of the hat to Dan Udovic, the program’s chair for the many opportunities to teach my own courses. After earning my master’s, I enrolled in the doctoral program in history at the University of California (UC), Davis. Although I spent only two years in residence, I made lifelong friends and colleagues. I need to thank Joan Cadden and Carole Hom for providing me support and shelter during my frequent visits to Davis. I want to thank Louis Warren and Kathy Olmsted for their support and Lorena Oropeza for listening to me as I worked to complete my first draft. But the people who kept me sane during my first two years at Davis were my study group—Amy Bauer-Heald, Marie Basile McDaniel, and Lisa Justice. One day we will have a reunion.

Throughout my academic career, I have worked in some capacity as an environmental consultant. It has helped me keep up-to-date with new policies as well as helping financially. So many people have helped me with support! During the writing of this book, Dave Jensen, Melanie Powers-Schanbacher, Shirin Mandagari, Karyn Igar, and Meredith McElmurry were the prime helpers.

Since I earned my Ph.D., I have worked with numerous wonderful people. First, I must thank Joe Pratt who offered me a one-year postdoc at the University of Houston (UH). Without Joe’s patience, dedication, good humor, and knowledge, I would be a lesser scholar. At UH, I got to work with another of my mentors, Marty Melosi. WOW! That year in Houston was a precious moment in time when I could think about my manuscript and watch two wonderful historians, citizens, and humans create a place of knowledge, justice, and inquiry. It was there that I realized that at the core of my work was the desire to understand the relationship of humans with chemical pollution. Through Marty, I met Joel Tarr, a fellow Pittsburgher and all around wonderful person. These two men pushed me to publish with the University of Pittsburgh Press. There or should I say here, Sandy Crooms has helped me through the process. Also, thanks to my anonymous reviewers who provided additional insight into my research so it is a better book. Also, to all the people who have read or discussed this manuscript over the years—there are too many to name, so THANKS!

During my years of working on this project, many organizations have provided me with financial assistance. They include the UC Davis History Department, the Reed-Smith Grant Program, the Historical Society of Southern California, the National Science Foundation IGERT Program, and the Rachel Carson Center in Munich. Also, I need to thank what Michael and I call the Handwerk-Little Fund. This fund is endowed by the financial and psychological support that our families have instilled in us. The fund name is derived from the birth names of our two strong and resourceful mothers.

I benefited from visiting a variety of archives while researching my manuscript. They include the Edmund Muskie Archives at Bates College, the LBJ Archives in Austin, Texas, the Nixon Archives now located in Southern California, the Stewart Udall Archives at the University of Arizona, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives on Cape Cod. I want to thank Colby College’s Environmental Studies Program for a one-year appointment as a visiting professor while I worked on my Muskie chapter. Wow, it gets cold in Maine! Also, I would be remiss not to thank Alissa Sherry and Tom Van Schaik for opening their house to me when I was in Austin and Nancy Henion who kept me sane during the cold, lonely nights in Maine.

In the last years of completing the book, a few people have stepped in with positions and guidance along the way. First, I want to thank Dan Lewis. My short time at the Huntington Library as his research assistant allowed me to watch and experience the kind of determination and enthusiasm a practicing historian needs when he has a full-time job, a personal life, and the desire to write. He will remain an inspiration. I also want to thank Kristen Monroe and the UC Irvine Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality. Kristen and the center gave me a home to discuss interdisciplinary ideas and access to the University of California’s library databases. A particular thank you needs to go to Kristine Harper who gave the book its title. She has influenced me during my historical journey and it is wonderful that she will have a lasting presence with this book. Thanks also to Char Miller who talked to his Claremont Colleges colleagues about me and my work. With his help and a coffee meeting with Brinda Sarathy, I am now a visiting assistant professor at Pitzer College in its Environmental Analysis Program. I love interdisciplinary teaching and this position gives me an opportunity to share both my experiences as an environmental engineer and my academic knowledge as a historian. It also gives me an outlet for my interest in pedagogy.

On a personal level, I have my friends and family who listened to me over the years. My first real academic mentor was Richard I. Herrup, the local pharmacist. He listened to this girl as she spouted on about Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and their policies and he took her seriously. I need to thank, Eva Spezio for providing me with my partner and spouse Michael. My mom and dad, John and Sally Sabol. Their sacrifices, grit, and selflessness have made me a Sabol. If you know any of my siblings, you know what that means. If you do not know them, I will be happy to explain what being a Sabol means in person. My brothers, John, Tom, and Ralph—thanks! And my sisters . . . Kathleen and Carolyn. They are my best friends who have had my back since I was born. I know their husbands Gerry Kirschner and David Secunda are watching from heaven and smiling along with our cat Pongo. A special nod to my late brother Donald who passed in April 2007; I know that you are up there looking down at me with special pride. I miss you every day! A Sabol finally published a book! I wish you could be here to give me a hug, lick my glasses, and call me pond scum.

PREFACE

WASN’T THAT A MIGHTY STORM

The Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969

Then the sea started to boil . . .

FROM WASN’T THAT A MIGHTY STORM

ON JANUARY 28, 1969, after two nasty winter storms deposited almost fifteen inches of rain over ten days throughout Southern California causing extensive flooding, forcing thousands from their homes, and washing tons of debris onto coastal beaches, the people of Santa Barbara woke to a beautiful, cold, windy but sunny day with calm seas. A walk on the beach that morning allowed residents to see the mountains of driftwood, seaweed, and garbage that the storm had swept ashore. The torrential rains also brought sediment and sewage into the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel. The Santa Barbara community breathed a sigh of relief; they hoped that the worst of the winter storms were over. As residents began the extensive cleanup of neighborhoods and repaired bridges on Route 101 and many other roads, the people of Santa Barbara were unaware that one of the newly constructed offshore oil platforms would begin to spew oil into the Santa Barbara Channel and quicken the pace of the environmental movement that had simmered since the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

A little more than three months before that fateful day a Union Oil subcontractor commenced drilling wells from Platform A approximately five miles off the Santa Barbara coast. Today, Platform A can still be seen along with other offshore oil platforms from the Santa Barbara coast.¹ In 1969, Union Oil and its partner oil companies planned to drill numerous wells into the Outer Continental Shelf from the platform. In early January, the drilling crew began boring Well A-21 into a promising tract leased from the federal government for $62 million. Over fourteen days, the crew punched a hole in the earth attempting to extract natural gas and oil from deposits underneath the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel.

Having drilled to 3,479 feet beneath the surface of the ocean floor, the drilling crew removed approximately 500 to 700 feet of piping from the hole. The action released subterranean artesian pressure that pushed up against the ineffectual density of drilling mud, which was too low to stop the surge of pressure from the hole. As the well kicked, the workers on the platform tried to stop the upward flow of mud before any natural gas or oil spewed from the pipe, but they were unable to stop its momentum. Mud and flammable natural gas shot with a roar from the open pipe. Well A-21 had blown out. For thirteen harrowing minutes, workers attempted to seal the well as flammable natural gas and mud spewed into the sky and rained on them and the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel. A single spark had the potential to cause an explosion and kill everyone on the platform. Because of the intense pressure of the natural gas in the formation, the workers tried but failed to use the blowout preventer, which is designed to stop the natural gas, oil, and mud from spewing from an open wellhead. Using brute force, the workers sealed the well at the platform by dropping the piping and closing the hole. As they breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that the improvised solution would work, they became aware that natural gas and drilling mud began to boil to the ocean surface approximately 500 to 800 feet from the platform from fault lines that intersected the Santa Barbara Channel. Oil began to spew from the fissures a few hours later. Like much of California, the ocean floor of the Santa Barbara Channel is a fault zone. Oil seeped from these fault lines on a regular basis. The change in the underground pressure caused the natural gas and oil to find an outlet in these fault lines and these regular seeps became openings for the oil. For ten days, between 22,000 and 220,000 gallons of oil shot out along the fissures and fault lines in the ocean floor each day. The oil covered the Santa Barbara beaches and coastline. For months, oil leaked from the fault lines.

How did this moment become an iconic event in U.S. environmental history? My book considers this question. Historians, journalists, and other writers include the Santa Barbara spill along with the publication of Silent Spring and the Cuyahoga River fires as events that transformed, quickened, or started the modern environmental movement in the United States. Taking on this seminal event was at first daunting. Initially, I was surprised by the paucity of books written on the spill. A few books were written in the first three years after the spill. Robert Easton’s Black Tide, Lee Dye’s Blowout at Platform A, and Carol Steinhart and John Steinhart’s Blowout (all written before 1973) describe the actions of citizens and government and industry officials as they attempted to manage the aftermath of the pollution.² Later, I began to understand why so few books have analyzed the event and its aftermath. How do you take an event that has almost mythic status and interpret its repercussions? It is a formidable enterprise. With this challenge and the help of lots of friendly discussions with historians and others, I knew I had to look at it through my own historical lens. First, I am interested in how humans interact with chemical pollution. Second, I have always been drawn to the political history of the environmental movement. Seeing that I could not fully answer the above questions, I concentrated on these two themes. I recognized that my interests could shed light on some of the reasons that the spill is important to the history of the environmental movement. I also knew with an event like the spill many people would have their own ideas of what effect it had on the environmental movement. With these tensions, I worked to understand and discover the interconnections between the oil pollution and the political changes that occurred in the early 1970s.

First, I attempt in my book to understand how the spill affected federal environmental policy in the early 1970s. I show how the political response to the spill assisted in giving the participants of the environmental movement agency any voice to address the increasing chemical pollution in the United States and the world—something they did not have before. Without the National Environmental Policy Act, citizens would not have had an active role in the planning and construction of federally funded projects. Without the effluent standards in the Clean Water Act of 1972, citizens and local and state governments would have been unable to become aware of the quantity of chemical pollutants released into navigable waters in the United States from industrial facilities. The two laws transformed the way citizens approached pollution. No longer were citizens protesting against anonymous or unknown polluters or having to find the local government agency that had jurisdiction or control over a particular pollutant in a stream. These laws created structure for their concerns. With federal control and oversight, citizens could band together to fight pollution in the air, in the water, and on the land throughout the United States. My book does not look at the history of these two laws; instead it looks at how the spill had a role in shaping and forcing the creation of these laws in less than four years after the spill.

Second, I explore the changing ideas of pollution, specifically in water. People could no longer see, smell or taste the pollution in their drinking water, streams, lakes, and oceans. They needed technology to detect the pollution. Newly developed science and technology detected, identified, and quantified nonsensory pollutants. Data from the technology gave participants of the environmental movement the evidence to more effectively protest against industrial polluters, further strengthening the environmental movement. But scientists needed events and a stage to test and publicize their advancements in scientific knowledge. The Santa Barbara spill and other oil spills allowed scientists to test their hypotheses on real world events. But more important, the government officials who worked for environmental policy changes also needed the new science and technology. Government representatives provided the scientists a platform to educate other scientists and government officials. Without the changing science, the Clean Water Act of 1972 might not have its effluent standards nor its robust permitting system.

To tell the story of how the spill transformed environmental policy and the science that strengthened it, I considered my own path to understand the effects of the spill. When researching the book, I did not initially consider the changing science. I assumed that the rise of pollution went hand in hand with the rise of detection technology. As a practicing engineer, I always had an abundance of chemical analytical tools to identify and detect contamination in water, soil, and air.³ I was amazed to realize that before the mid-1970s, no one had the ability to easily detect chemical contamination. This awareness provided me with insight into how to organize the book. I wanted readers to understand what the world was like before January 28, 1969. Therefore, my book has three sections. The first section explores environmental policy, offshore oil drilling, and the science of pollution detection before the spill. The second section describes the ten days of the spill and how the response of the federal government, the news media, the oil industry, and the American public set the stage for the transformation. In the third section, I discuss the changes described above.

I will admit the book does not answer the initial question: How did this moment become an iconic event in United States environmental history? But it does bring into focus some of the reasons historians and journalists consider the Santa Barbara oil spill a watershed event. Moreover, I hope it provides activists, government decision makers, and others some insight into how and why we have strong federal government structures that protect the water that humans need to live, play, and work. The structures have given residents of the United States the platform to slow and stop many practices that would have caused the destruction of many ecosystems and compromised health for the inhabitants of the United States.

INTRODUCTION

The Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969

THIS BOOK TELLS the tale of how the blowout off the Santa Barbara coast sped up and influenced the decision-making process for some of the most important environmental legislation of the twentieth century. The spill transformed the development, regulation, and enforcement of United States environmental policy and changed the way the American public viewed and reacted to environmental pollution. It will also show how the spill became the catalyst for new scientific technologies that informed pollution prevention and environmental contamination. I argue that the aftermath of the spill forced Congress to pass long-delayed legislation that gave federal agencies the authority to take an active role in the enforcement of water pollution from industrial processes. In addition, the congressional actions compelled federal agencies to consider environmental issues when considering large projects such as offshore oil drilling. Finally, the response to the spill brought new technologies and scientific methods to the attention of congressional representatives so that standards for water pollution from increasing chemical use could be established and enforced. The standards forced industrial facilities to develop processes to mitigate water pollution into navigable waters of the United States.

The blowout occurred as Congress, research scientists, and the public were coming to grips with the increased pollution from myriad emerging industrial processes that made life easier and more convenient for the growing middle class. Since the end of the Second World War, Congress had taken steps toward dealing with the dramatic changes in the generation of pollution and the disappearance of landscape unaffected by its consequences. In the 1960s, the Johnson administration and Congress moved toward preserving federal lands and wild and scenic rivers—places that had yet to be despoiled by timber cutting, mining, damming, and industrial pollution. In trying to control and abate pollution from residential and industrial processes, Congress remained hamstrung by its inability to dictate how states could manage their water and air. Congress needed to convince the states that it was not meddling in their affairs. And states needed to be convinced. Before the Santa Barbara oil spill, Congress passed few laws pertaining to antipollution policy. It did not help that few analytical tests could cheaply and effectively detect the presence of chemical pollutants in water. Odor, taste, color, and waterborne diseases, along with fish kills, remained the harbingers of water pollution. The spill, its effects on the environment, and the chaotic local and federal response to the disaster gave congressional decision makers the justification for comprehensive environmental legislation and federal water pollution control laws. Congress was finally convinced that federal intervention was needed to slow and eventually reverse the degradation of the environment.

Until the oil spill, Santa Barbara was a relative haven from the growing pollution in the United States. Clean air and a gentle climate beckoned people and industry to its confines. In 1969, the city of Santa Barbara had seventy thousand residents, and Santa Barbara County contained a little more than twice that number. More than four million tourists per year enjoyed its mountains, beaches, ocean, and the nearby Channel Islands. In addition to tourism, the economy of Santa Barbara encompassed primarily research and development industries, retirement communities, and the University of California, Santa Barbara (founded in 1944). Although offshore oil and natural gas drilling was also an important part of Santa Barbara’s economy, Santa Barbara residents for decades had expressed concerns that the offshore drilling would foul their beaches, ruin their communities, and end their tourist economy. Indeed, as offshore drilling in California waters increased between the Second World War and the mid-1960s, residents increasingly complained about oil and tar washing up on their treasured coast.

Places like Santa Barbara were far away from the majority of the negative effects of postwar industrialization and manufacturing. Santa Barbara’s population growth had increased pollution from sanitary waste, but the lack of heavy manufacturing facilities meant Santa Barbara avoided the increased water pollution from heavy industry that was affecting other urban areas. The lack of manufacturing facilities lessened the effect of the increased pollution from the growing number of cars, appliances, and other consumer products on the coastal city and county. This secluded place on the California coast was not only geographically far from the industrial shores of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan but also far from the visible water pollution that scarred these once beautiful waterways. The blowout brought Santa Barbara and its residents philosophically and experientially closer to the residents of large manufacturing cities and their pollution problems. For months after the blowout, Santa Barbara’s beaches and coastlines were covered with oil, like the pollution-covered shores of lakes, rivers, and streams of the industrial cities of the United States. In contrast to Gary, Indiana, and Youngstown, Ohio, the environmental catastrophe in Santa Barbara garnered the media attention necessary to force the discussion and eventual development of federal antipollution policy in the next decade.

Not only was Santa Barbara geographically far from northern industrial cities, its residents were largely rich, white, and Republican. Its employment sector concentrated on research and development and academics. In the 1960s, catastrophic water pollution events primarily occurred in manufacturing centers of the United States. Cleveland’s burning Cuyahoga River and fish kills in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Portland, Oregon, and Lake Michigan occurred because of established industries such as steelmaking that had polluted these areas for decades.¹ These industries existed in urban areas of poor and working-class people. As the 1960s progressed and increasing incomes gave some families a chance to escape from polluted industrial centers, the residents of the polluted areas became predominantly families of color. African American families were unable to move due to prejudicial housing covenants that precluded them from moving to less polluted and more white areas.² Upper-class and white families thought they had escaped catastrophic and acute pollution events by moving away from these industrial centers but the spill showed that this was not the case. They thought if it could happen to the predominantly white privileged residents of Santa Barbara it could happen to families who considered their homes and communities safe from pollution.

Over the years, books, news programs, and scholarship have credited the spill as the turning point for public involvement and action to bring environmental awareness to the forefront of American culture, but the exact mechanism of this sea change has not been thoroughly explored.³ By exploring the actions of forces involved in federal policy change, including government representatives, scientists, the media, and Santa Barbara residents, I illustrate both the direct and indirect effects of the spill. I look in familiar and unfamiliar places to find the far-reaching role the Santa Barbara spill played in federal pollution policy. Historians note that the spill spurred the environmental movement and assisted in the development of federal antipollution legislation including the Clean Water Acts of 1970 and 1972. But I also show that the spill influenced the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act. My experience as a practicing environmental engineer and former regulator guided me to places I did not expect to explore, and allowed me to clearly see that scientists and the development of pollution detection systems played an active role in influencing the structure of the federal regulations, which both surprised and delighted me. The acceptance of new scientific techniques is one of the often-overlooked results of the Santa Barbara oil spill.

With these objectives, I follow the history of national water pollution control policy from its beginning in the late 1890s with the passage of the Refuse Act and the Oil Pollution Act of 1924 to the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act amendments. I investigate concomitant issues such as the development of national environmental policy and the science behind measuring and classifying pollution. I show the spill as the catalyst for the transformation in United States environmental policy. I initially disliked the word catalyst because a catalyst implies that the substance returns to its original state as it increases the rate of change. Santa Barbara did change and so did the offshore oil industry off the California coast. But as metaphor, it is the correct word since the blowout accelerated the creation of national environmental policy, transformed the state–federal relationship for water pollution policy, and forced scientists to find and use better measuring tools for detecting pollution. And to the