Contrary to Greenie narrative, not every oil spill is man-made.

American Thinker:

When an offshore spill occurs in the oil industry, the mainstream media visuals most remembered are oil slicks, oiled waterfowl, and contaminated sea mammals.  How often have you seen similar visuals from the effects of natural oil seeps?  One of the most notable onshore oil seeps is the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles.  Do you know how many oil deposits are discovered?  Geologists map subsurface geology from a natural surface seep to a likely low point or reservoir.  Some deep offshore locations have asphalt volcanoes that have been discovered only over the past two decades.  The National Academy of Sciences, formed through congressional charter signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, states that natural oil seeps account for 46% of the load to the world’s oceans.

In January 1969, a Unocal offshore platform accident occurred six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara.  The high-end estimated oil spill volume was 4.2 million gallons.  Santa Barbara oil production began in the late 19th century in Summerland.  At the turn of the 20th century, California was the largest oil-producing state in the nation.  The Unocal spill became the battle cry of environmentalists to stop offshore oil and gas development in California, as Earth Day and President Richard Nixon’s National Environmental Policy Act, which caused the formation of the EPA, were formulated.

I spent high school and college summers at Huntington Beach in Southern California when I was not working to earn my degree.  It was a bit disconcerting coming out of the water with tar balls stuck to my feet.  I remember that the “pumpjacks” or “grasshopper” pumped oil wells near Pacific Coast Highway and along State Highway 39 (Beach Boulevard).  An earlier-generation Californian told me about using gasoline to clean the soles of his feet from tar balls at Santa Monica beach in the 1940s through 1960s.  Do you remember the pumpjacks behind Hollywood Park racetrack?   more here