“Based on what we're seeing, it's a lighter impact than expected of a worst-case discharge.'
A week later, the region and its signature beaches appear to have been spared a potentially calamitous fate, though the long-term toll on plant and animal life remains unknown.
The news was welcome after a harrowing week of beach closures in seaside communities where life revolves around the water. Officials initially feared Huntington Beach — dubbed Surf City USA — could be off-limits to surfers and swimmers for months. But Mayor Kim Carr on Thursday said she was “cautiously optimistic” they could be back in the water in weeks.
Out by the oil platforms, there was no visible sheen by mid-week, and the putrid odor that blanketed Huntington Beach last weekend had faded. Dolphins jumped in the waves, and birds skimmed the water’s surface. John Villa, executive director of the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy, said the community was hit with more crude during a 1990 spill, and more than 1,000 animals were affected. In this spill, oil has entered three marshes near the beach, but the damage was minimized by quickly erected barriers, he said.
But many birds are likely affected by oil and haven’t been found, and other species that don’t have the same migratory patterns might not be as fortunate, he said. That’s why tallying oiled birds isn’t an ideal measure for the effect of an oil spill, he said.
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