1969 Santa Barbara oil spill 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill The Santa Barbara oil spill occurred in January and February 1969 in the Santa Barbara Channel, near the city of Santa Barbara in Southern California. It was the largest oil spill in United States waters by that time, and now ranks third after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 1989 Exxon Valdez spills. It remains the largest oil spill to have occurred in the waters off California. The source of the spill was a blow-out on January 28, 1969, from the coast on Union Oil's Platform A in the Dos Cuadras Offshore Oil Field. Within a
Prestige oil spill a rupture and quickly release much of the remaining oil and create another catastrophic spill. The report urged the government to take "prompt" action. Experts predicted marine life could suffer from the pollution for at least ten years due to the type of oil spill, which contained light fractions with polyaromatic hydrocarbons and could poison plankton, fish eggs and crustaceans with carcinogenic effects in fish and potentially humans as well. In the subsequent months, thousands of volunteers joined the public company TRAGSA (the firm chosen by the regional government to deal with the cleanup) to help clean the affected coastline.