“Beaches of Santa Barbara featured tar long before the oil spill.”
I used to work on the platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel. On the boat ride out to the rigs, you could see little blobs of oil bubble to the surface and pop, leaving a little slick on the surface. The beaches in that area are full of little tar patches on the beach. Platform Emmy has been there a long time. I’m not surprised at the news.
Oops! Platform Elly.
A great deal of oil seeps up through the bottom of the ocean and floats up to the surface. It is naturally occurring.