COSTA MESA : State Adopts New Offshore Rig Rules

State officials on Wednesday adopted new regulations for marine oil terminals designed to prevent tanker accidents like the one that polluted the ocean off Huntington Beach in 1990.

State Controller Gray Davis, who chairs the State Lands Commission, called the new rules “the toughest and most comprehensive oil spill prevention regulations in the world.”

The rules will apply to all offshore terminals where crude oil is delivered in California, including the one off Huntington Beach where the American Trader spilled about 400,000 gallons of oil in February, 1990.

The commission outlined 50 pages of safety procedures that must be followed whenever oil is transferred at the mooring areas. Included are deployment of booms in the ocean whenever the oil is transferred, exchange of information between oil tanker crews and mooring officials, and annual state inspections of the terminals.

Each terminal operator must also examine its operations and safety equipment at least three times a year. Diver inspections, standby tugboats and a minimum under-keel clearance between tankers and the ocean floor were also mandated.

The rules are more stringent than ones adopted by the U.S. Coast Guard, the federal agency that oversees oil terminals, said Davis’ spokesman Edd Fong.