Oil sheen in the Talbert Canal near the site of last year’s major Orange County pipeline spill

State officials contained an oil sheen that was spotted in the Talbert Channel near Huntington Beach Friday morning.

Crews working to replace the steep walls noticed a bright sheen, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response.

“Due to the brownish-milky characteristics of the oil, officials believe it may have come from an abandoned pipeline,” government officials said.

The flash was contained and crews continued to monitor the situation, officials said in a tweet Friday afternoon.

“No oil found in Talbert Marsh; no oiled wild animals detected,” the tweet said.

Last October, after an estimated 25,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a broken pipeline connected to an offshore platform in Orange County, the oil seeped into the environmentally sensitive Talbert Marsh.

Although at first the authorities feared the worst, because the waves are crashing dead fish and the oil-covered birds struggled to take off, a combination of luck, favorable weather conditions and an aggressive response by officials who had studied previous spills softened the blow.

Officials noted a favorable ocean current that pulled the oil plumes southward, keeping much of the oil off the coast.

Beaches as far south as San Diego County saw tar balls but avoided major oil spills. This was in marked contrast to the much larger American Trader oil spill in 1990, which beachesmarinas and marshes covered in crude oil, polluting 15 miles of beach in Orange County.

A spokesman for the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation could not be reached for further information about Friday’s shiner.

Los Angeles Times 2022.

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