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How a coast crowded with ships, port gridlock and an anchor may have caused Orange County oil spill
From phys.org
...
The combination of oil production and global shipping in the same coastal area is now at the center of an investigation into the cause of a massive oil spill that sent crude onto Orange County beaches and sensitive wetland areas.
The U.S. Coast Guard is looking at the possibility that the crush of shipping traffic came into violent contact with this network of undersea infrastructure and triggered a spill that sent an estimated 144,000 gallons of oil into the ocean.
On Tuesday, diver reports and footage from remotely operated submarines showed that a 4,000-foot section of a nearly 18-mile oil pipeline had been displaced approximately 105 feet and had a 13-inch split along its length, according to the Joint Unified Command, which is overseeing the investigation.
The displacement, federal sources said, is best explained by a ship's anchor dragging across the ocean floor and hooking into the pipeline. There were multiple large cargo vessels in the immediate area of the leak before the oil was spotted.
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