This shortcut proved to be expensive. On the first day of drilling 14, the pressure triggered a blowout, and the mud was sprayed to more than 90 feet above the platform ground. The company tried to stop the oil from flowing out of the well, but soon, the oil workers noticed that the sea water was bubbling. The increase in pressure causes natural gas and oil to be found and ejected in cracks on the seabed. In the first 1 1 day, oil leaked at a rate of nearly 9000 gallons per hour. When United Oil Company tried to stop the oil spill, about 3 million gallons (equivalent to 4.5 Olympic swimming pools) had spread 35 miles away. This is listed as the worst oil spill in the country's history. Fifty years later, after a more catastrophic oil spill, it is now the third largest oil spill. )
1In February, 969, Paul Relis, a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), cheated in the plane oil spill accident. He described a scene in the oral history of the Pacific Flag: "I remember looking directly at the huge Kuroshio spewing out of the ocean. I immediately thought that this would change the world. " This disaster prompted Relis to help establish an ecological center, which is one of the earliest environmental information centers of its kind in the United States. The oil spill also forced other residents to take action. In the first week, local activists created a grassroots organization called "Get Oil Out"! (goo! ) Call on * * * to stop drilling in the Santa Barbara Strait.
United Oil Company collected a crop duster, covered the growing oil slick with dispersant and talcum powder, and sent divers to the bottom of the sea to try to reinforce the cracks, but these efforts did not stop the oil from washing up on the beach in the terrible silent waves, covering the feathers of dead long-haired monkeys and western gray monkeys. Although some people try to clean up and take care of these oil-covered birds, there are still 3,700 (official statistics) to 9,000 (scientists estimate) dead. 1969 In February, a dead bird was covered with oil on the beach in Santa Barbara.
(Vernon Mei Lite III/Life Album/Getty Pictures) appeared. At that time, the citizens gathered together, and the oil company quickly expanded 3000 tons of straws to suck up the crude oil on the beach, which attracted national attention. Theresa sabol Spezi, author of Oil Spill Policy: Environmental and Scientific Policy after the Oil Spill in Santa Barbara, called it "the first color disaster". President Nixon recently took office, and he himself is the owner of a property in the coastal area of California. He even went to the beach to accept defeat. "The Santa Barbara incident," he said, "frankly touched the conscience of the American people."
A group of reporters surrounded Nixon when he carefully set foot on the partially clean beach in Santa Barbara. Other KDSP politicians also visited the oil spill site, including Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, who was more sincere in environmental protection than the President. That summer, Nelson witnessed the damage caused by the oil spill after giving a speech at a water quality conference in Santa Barbara. Later, on the plane to Berkeley for the next lecture, the senator read a teaching article against the Vietnam War. He later recalled: "I suddenly realized, why not carry out environmental education nationwide?" * * * Gladwin Hill, an environmental journalist, called it "the ecological gunshot heard by the whole world" in an article about the oil spill in June 1970, although people's concern for the environment had been increasing before June 1969. American environmental historian Adam? Adam Rome said that Americans began to question the knowledge reached before World War II that pollution was just an unattractive exchange and could not be exchanged for a strong industrial economy. He explained that this change in attitude was partly due to the affluence of the post-war middle class and the increasing willingness of scientists to discuss environmental consequences with the public. Rome said that people are also beginning to notice a disturbing pattern. New technology has brought worrying consequences, such as cancer caused by nuclear radiation, or 1959 herbicide panic that kept cowberries away from the Thanksgiving table. Rachel carson's Silent Spring became a best seller of 1962. 1968 The photos of the earth rising during apollo 8 revealed the fragility of the earth. During the term of lyndon johnson, nearly 300 environmental-related bills were signed, and the membership of Sierra Club doubled from 1960 to 1965, according to the publication of American Journal of History. The environmental movement existed before the Santa Barbara oil spill, but it is still fragmented and we know nothing about it now.
This name, 1969 oil spill, is a catalyst that helps to change the status quo. "I think (oil spill) is the most important one in a series of accidents or problems, which makes people realize that many seemingly incredible modern technologies ... pose unprecedented risks to environmental health and ultimately to ourselves," Rome said.
After the spill 10 days, workers began to pile straw along the coastline to absorb millions of gallons of crude oil. (Bettman/Getty Images) If Santa Barbara attracts the attention of this country, then Earth Day attracts it. According to his biography, this man from Lake Cleare, after the idea of Earth Day moved him, Nelson set up a non-profit organization called "Environmental Education Company". , induced California * * * and Democrat Pete mccloskey to co-host the "Learning Day" (it was not called "Earth Day" until the later advertising campaign), and announced this activity one month after visiting Santa Barbara. He told the crowd in Seattle: "I think the same concern shown by young people in this country in changing the country's priorities on the Vietnam War and civil rights issues can be shown on environmental issues." . Earth Day's concern for young people's participation is obvious on this day. This day was chosen to avoid the final exam and spring break, and Denis Hayes, a 25-year-old graduate of Stanford University, was hired to organize this activity. Rome wrote that that autumn, "the number of student environmental organizations surged."
With the increasing momentum of Earth Day, the aftermath of the Santa Barbara oil spill made them feel this in local and national policies. Get the oil out! In the long run, efforts to ban drilling in the federal waters of the Santa Barbara Strait proved unsuccessful. Anger over the oil slick led the University of California Business School (UCSB) to set up one of the earliest environmental research departments in the United States, and this model will be adopted nationwide. Environmentally conscious legislators, such as Henry's "scoops" Jackson and edmund muskie, took advantage of this disaster and finally promoted blocked protection policies in Congress, such as the Clean Water Act. The oil spill made the bill urgent because.