GOLETA, Calif. — More than 6,000 gallons of oil have been raked, skimmed and vacuumed from a spill stretching across nine miles of California coast in a cleanup effort being carried out 24 hours a day, officials said on Thursday, but that is just some of the sticky, stinking sludge that escaped from a broken pipeline.
Investigators have found that up to 105,000 gallons may have leaked from the broken pipeline, and up to a fifth of that — 21,000 gallons — reached the sea, according to estimates.
Federal regulators were investigating the leak as workers in protective suits raked and shoveled black matter off the beaches, and as boats towed booms to corral the two slicks off the Santa Barbara coast.
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