Natural Perspectives:

It hardly seems possible, but it will be 20 years ago Sunday since the American Trader tanker ran aground on its own anchor, spilling more than 400,000 gallons of crude oil on the beaches and wetlands of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.

Many of our readers may not have lived here then, or memories may have faded for those who were here. So let us review what happened on that sad day in 1990.

The oil tanker American Trader was offloading crude oil to be piped ashore when it ripped its hull open on its own anchor. The bottom topography of the ocean had shifted from what the maps showed. Crude oil began flowing nonstop from the tanker and into the ocean. During that ecological catastrophe, an estimated 3,400 birds lost their lives. When I reported a dead, oiled pigeon at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, several officers from the Huntington Beach Police Department collected it as evidence. An oil spill is a crime.

The huge Exxon Valdez spill had occurred 11 months earlier in Alaska, and the public’s awareness of the hazards of oil spills was heightened. Volunteers turned out in droves to rescue the oiled birds that washed ashore. Vic was among them. In fact, Vic and Shirley Dettloff organized the bird rescue mission. Vic showed up at the city lifeguard headquarters that first evening. With television crews from CNN following him, he picked up the first bird to be brought in for cleaning, a Western grebe. That bird got tag No. 1.

The International Bird Rescue Research Center showed up the next day to decontaminate birds that were coated with a thick layer of toxic crude oil. They set up a triage and treatment area in a warehouse in the Long Beach harbor. Using Dawn dish liquid, rescuers scrubbed the birds clean of crude oil, a long and stressful process for both the birds and the rescuers. The birds were rinsed clean and force-fed nutrients until they were well enough to take food on their own.

The beach cleanup operation cost about $10 million and used about 1,100 workers who were trained in crash courses to work with crude oil. Using oil absorbent pads, they wiped the beach and rock jetties by hand, over and over, until the areas were clean. Unfortunately, with 400,000 gallons spilled, the oil washed onto shore as fast as they could clean it up. It was weeks before the beaches were clean and open to the public.

The Huntington Wetlands had just been restored, and Talbert Marsh was particularly fragile. In those days, Talbert Marsh connected to the ocean through the Santa Ana River, not through its own channel like today. Bulldozer operators built huge sand berms across the mouth of the Santa Ana River in an attempt to hold the tides at bay. But high tide backed by a storm surge is a tremendous force to be reckoned with.

The berms were not up to the challenge. Once the first trickle of water topped a berm, erosion began. Soon a flow of brown, oily water began oozing over the top of the berm, cutting the channel wider and deeper with every passing second. In a flash, the berm gave way and a brown, frothy mass of water rushed into Talbert Marsh, ripping aside the protective rubber dams designed to hold back the oil. I was among the crowd of people standing by helplessly, watching the area that we had worked so hard to restore get destroyed in an instant.

The whole marsh seemed to gasp for breath. When that toxic slurry sloshed over the mudflats, clams squirted jets of water into the air. Suffocating fish splashed out of the water by the hundreds, struggling to find water that wouldn’t coat their gills. The entire wetland squeaked hideously. I’ve never heard anything like it before or since. I was hearing an ecosystem die.

There was no escape for fish, clams, crabs or worms. The next day, the entire shoreline was littered with dead bubble snails, a marine snail with a shell the size and shape of a chicken egg.

I combed the beach and marsh for injured birds. Exposure to the crude oil fumes gave me raging headaches. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be completely coated in that toxic tar. Injured birds had it all over their feathers and in their eyes. Their attempts to preen simply transferred the oil to their stomachs. I was amazed that any of them survived.

About 10 days after the spill began, I found a Western grebe coated with a thin film of oil. By then, the bird rescue operation was winding down. I brought in the bird for cleaning, and it was given tag No. 1,001. That grebe was the last bird to be rehabbed. I though it was ironic that Vic brought in the first bird and I brought in the last.

Birds were given colored leg bands that made subsequent identification easier. A brown pelican that survived that spill was sighted recently, still alive and well. As that pelican had been an adult and thus, at least 4 years old when it was treated, that means it is at least 24.

At least some good came out of that ecological disaster. As part of the nearly $3-million settlement, Huntington Beach got the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center.

Since the American Trader spill, there have been numerous small “incidents” that have injured wildlife. Just a couple of weeks ago, Huntington Beach got hit again and more birds got oiled. That spill started upstream in the Huntington Beach flood-control channel, somewhere around Indianapolis Street. Fast work on the part of responding agencies kept the spill from reaching Talbert Marsh.

While it is sad to see these environmental onslaughts happen time and time again, it is heartening to see that so many people care. The public response to the American Trader spill was overwhelming. More than 1,000 people volunteered to help rescue birds. People love their beaches. Wildlife too.

That wildlife still needs help. The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center is overwhelmed with starving pelicans, victims of climate change. Visit www.wwccoc.org.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].