Oil-Fouled California Beaches Rekindle Demands for Offshore Ban

摘要

Cruising along the panoramic Pacific Coast Highway that hugs the curves of California’s shoreline, it’s the salty sea breeze that typically overtakes you. This week, it’s the stench of crude oil.The state’s worst oil spill in almost 30 years means crude is washing ashore as “tar balls” or “patties,” a sticky mess that gets caught in the sand. It’s marring some of the world’s mostrenowned beaches, famed almost as much for the surf as for the multi-million dollar homes that dot the hills overlooking the ocean.The mucky scene playing out across Southern California’s coastline is reigniting the debate over an offshore drilling industry that once helped make the Golden State one of the mostprolific oil-producing regions in the world, churning out more than 1 million barrels a day at its height. Today, the output from old platforms that dot the region’s shores has dwindled tojust tens of thousands of barrels a day, and the risk of leaks and oil spills has risen. The disaster has also drawn fresh scrutiny of aging offshore oil and gas infrastructure around theworld, built decades ago back before fracking, horizontal drilling and shale made ocean drilling less economic.