Updates 10/2/2021-Present
Huntington Beach Oil Spill
Check back here and on Social Media for Updates throughout the spill
Oil spills make everyone want to roll up their sleeves and help the planet!
Oil spills are also toxic and a legal hotbed so the public are usually not welcome to the disaster site. This is for your own safety and Matter of Trust agrees with haz mat teams that warn against general public visiting an oil spill site.
You can still help! Matter of Trust has a program called Hair Matters. Did you know that you shampoo because hair collects oil? It can even soak up petro-chemical oil spills!
We especially need long hair, over 4 inches (10cm) and anyone can donate it by going to TheHumSum.org our environmental social media for Humanity Adding Solutions! We also except hair 1″ (3cm) or longer and we take pet fur clippings from groomers.
Check out this video:
10/2/2021 1:00AM PST:
Press alert goes out: Great Pacific Air Show at Huntington Beach, CA – 3rd day (Sunday) is officially cancelled due to an oil spill.
10/2/2021 9:00AM PST:
We woke up to the news like everyone else and knew this was going to be a big one. We are based in San Francicso, so LA is not too far and we have a lot prepared for this. Everyone can help!
We need long hair most, over 4 inches (10cm) and you can donate it by going to TheHumSum.org our environmental social media for Humanity Adding Solutions.
Before we could read the news, we had emails and phone calls from hair salons and pet groomers on the ground – reaching out to help! The best partners!
10/3/2021 11:00AM PST:
We have reached out to our contacts in local government and the Governor’s office to see if we can help providing the public with a safe way to get involved and also to let them know that we have a stock pile of hair mats for their public works / haz mat teams if they have an area where they will be helpful for them.
10/3/2021 12:00PM PST:
Shout out to the press! We love the heroes in the media who always help so much during oil spills! Here are some highlighted articles with great reporting:
10/3/2021 1:00PM PST:
Shout out to our partners on the ground and our friends all over the world reaching out to help! We LOVE hair stylists, pet groomers, ranchers all of you wonderful fiber donors from households and classrooms around the world!
– Huntington Beach “The beach sand is still clean for now. The water is muddy looking and the smell of petroleum is very strong in the air.”
Photo credit: Whitley Crawford
10/3/2021 2:00PM PST:
Shout out to another on-the-ground hero, pet groomer Veronica, who also helped out during the BP oil spill in 2010 and moved from the Gulf Coast to LA.
We see that 2 of the 3 following live cams are not up. Hoping to see more of what is happening on the beaches.
https://www.livebeaches.com/city/huntington-beach-ca/
10/3/2021 3:00PM PST:
This is the information that we have so far:
– 126,000 gallons (confirmed) perhaps more… spilled into Gulf of Santa Catalina 10/2/21
– These are Federal waters (which will immediately make unified command a mix of many local, state and federal departments).
– Unified Command, which will coordinate response, has been set up in Long Beach.
– originating from a pipeline connected to the Elly Offshore Platform
– Leak has been stopped (awaiting 100% confirmation). Shout out to the divers have been in the water since the wee hours of the morning 10/3/21 to repair the leak.
– As of this morning the oil slick was covering an area of 13 square miles and was 3 miles off the shore of Huntington Beach and Newport Pier.
– Oil is seeping into Talber Marsh (25 acre wetland).
10/3/2021 4:00PM PST:
We are starting to stack up hair mats at our Eco-Hub in SF, in case we need to truck some down to our friends in LA tomorrow.
Photo credit: Matteroftrust.org
Hair mats for oil spill cleanup
10/3/2021 5:00PM PST:
The important 1st step for helping in an emergency oil spill (which is very different from storm drains and contaminated water filtration systems) is making sure you know who you can partner with for the collection of oily waste. Usually a contractor with designated haz mat dumpsters. Occasionally, when the oil is pure crude like this one – with no added chemicals or dispersants, some oily hair mat waste may go to a composting study.
2nd step is conecting with haz mat team contractors, public works deployment teams on the ground and sometimes private parties (piers, hotels, harbors…) these contacts change for every spill.
3rd step is identifying the needed materials design. Once you have your partners in place, then we let the haz mat teams on the ground inform us. They will know best if they need mats, rolled mats with twine, stuffed booms, stuffed burlap sacks, well hair sticks, etc.
4th step is logistics. Getting the local materials there as close to the site as possible, for deployment.
10/3/2021 6:00PM PST:
This part of the beach isn’t seeing oil wash up or tar balls today, we will see what the tide brings in the morning.
Photo credit: Veronica – Pet Groomer & Planet Lover
Huntington Beach between Godenwest and Bolsa Chica
Bird covered in oil on Newport Beach 🙁
Luckily, the Air Show practiced Tuesday through Thursday and was happening Friday and Saturday. The noise scared off the birds and this may have saved a lot of them. So far, only 4 oily birds have been brought in for rescue.
10/4/2021 8:00AM PST:
Photo credit: Susie Makin Waves Salon
Ocean and shore closure due to oil spill
10/4/2021 9:00AM PST:
The pipeline leak is officially repaired now. The total number has been increased to 144,000 gallons (3555 barrels).
10/4/2021 10:00AM PST:
Parking lots and Beaches are all officially closed today (Monday). They were still open Sunday and locals are saying they actually noticed a gas smell already on Saturday during the Air Show. The wind is blowing today, however, so this will help clear the air.
Shout out to our wonderful partner Susie at Makin Waves Salon!
Makin’ Waves Salon – another wonderful partner in Huntington Beach!
10/4/2021 11:00AM PST:
Adding some complexity to the situation today, Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram are struggling with a major (1 hour so far) complete outage. Their websites are entirely offline. Twitter and YouTube are up and partners will be posting there as well.
People can instead donate hair through our free (and ad-free) environmental social media platform, TheHumSum.org for Humanity Adding Solutions!
10/4/2021 12:00PM PST:
We have connected with our various contacts up and down the state, working with the volunteer coordination, dumpsters and marshland protection efforts.
10/4/2021 1:00PM PST:
The public can go for a run or walk on the right side of this yellow tape but not on the shoreline or near the water
10/4/2021 3:00PM PST:
The oil is already like tar balls.
Cleanup Crew – Pacific Coast Highway between Brookhurst and Superior – Thanks guys for all the work you do!
10/4/2021 4:00PM PST:
Photo credit: Susie – Makin Waves Salon
Reports are now saying that tar balls are washing up all the way down passed Laguna Beach to Dana Point Headlands Conservation Area – Doheny State Beach.
Now there’s thunder and lightning – so the clean up crews are stopping for today.
10/5/2021:
Less gas smell in the air today. Last night’s storm helped clear / dispurse the aerosols.
Rumors abound about how the spill may have been caused by a tanker or container ship’s anchor breaking loose and damagine the pipeline.
https://apple.news/AtwKEZ_nOSvm_ifwKDdYwlg
Here’s more images from the response.
Synthetic boom stockpiles. When soiled they will be hazmat landfilled or incinerated. They are also using oil (polypropylene) to clean up oil. They are very buoyant. Hair mats in comparison are less toxic to incinerate and aren’t using oil in production. They are naturally somewhat buoyant (hair is the last to go down a drain, as we all know) but to float on top of the water alpaca fleece and dog fur and poodle hair are better.
Hazmat clean-up teams at Newport Beach.
Newport Beach synthetic boom deployment attached to rocks and overpasses.
Hazmat team deploying boom.
Oily boom clean up.
Soiled boom retrieval. This is excellent. Some spills see boom left out too long, but this immediate response is a very good sign. The water is looking relatively clear, here. The booms are still looking oily so the sheen is still, just but spreading out thinner and thinner with each passing day. That is why they say: The solutions to polution is dilution.
How synthetic boom is netted and attached with metal clips. This makes disposal, and reycling complicated but deployment easy. The plastic netting works to assist floatation. That’s not always necessary depending upon if it is at the shoreline, protecting rocks or in deeper waters.