Millions of barrels of oil naturally leak in the Santa Barbara channel every year. Nature takes care of it naturally.
I've heard the average daily output from natural seeps in the Coal Oil Point area is about 50,000 gallons. I drove past the spill site yesterday and caught of whiff of tarry Santa Barbara crude. The post-cleanup repairs were in progress. Looks like pretty small potatoes, not a reprise of the Torrey Canyon disaster the Guardian is pitching. You go walking around the beach there and you may step in tar from a natural seep. Despite the closed beaches there were surfers out there north and south.