BY GOGO LIDZ
WELL HEAD: Oil surges to the surface near a drilling rig off the coast of Santa Barbara on February 4, 1969. Three million gallons of oil spilled in the 1969 disaster, which led President Nixon to establish the EPA.
SANTA BARBARA is dripping with oil. Walk along the beaches of this Southern California city and chances are, tar will stick to your feet from the natural seeps. In 1896, due west of the waterfront, the world’s first experiment in offshore drilling unfolded in the Summerland oil field. A half-century later, Congress passed the Submerged Land Act, which established that states regulate everything within 3 nautical miles of the shoreline. Beyond that, it’s federal territory. The first federal lease, about 8 miles off the city of Carpinteria, was sold to Phillips Petroleum, Continental and Cities Service Oil Co. in 1966; two years later, 2,000 gallons of crude leaked from the platform that Phillips Oil built on the lot. Phillips and then-Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall assured angry residents that a spill of that magnitude would never happen again.