Oil Spill Cancels Popular Huntington Beach Surf Contest
HUNTINGTON BEACH (CBSLA) – The famous Huntington Beach Surf Contest has been canceled this upcoming weekend because of the oil leak which sent tens of thousands of gallons of oil spilling into Orange County's coastal waters.
The 50th annual Huntington Beach Surf Contest was scheduled to take place on Saturday and Sunday. With nearly all beaches closed in O.C., the event has been canceled.
Surf City Days, a community event which highlights businesses in downtown Huntington Beach, also slated to take place on Saturday and Sunday, has been postponed to a later date.
The pipeline leak, which was reported Saturday morning off Huntington Beach, may have spilled anywhere up to 144,000 gallons of oil into the ocean waters. The spill occurred in federal waters at the Elly rig, about 4 1/2 miles off-shore. The rig and pipeline are owned by Houston-based Amplify Energy.
Federal authorities confirmed Tuesday that a section of Amplify Energy's oil pipeline was damaged and moved more than 100 feet along the ocean floor, an indication that a ship's anchor may have caused the spill.
The nearly 18-mile pipeline runs from Amplify Energy's offshore drilling platforms to a pump station in Long Beach.