Activists say accident is soiling Gaviota coast, a Mediterranean-climate region of which there are only five in the world, and will be closed off for weeks or months
Cleanup crews scrambled to contain a nine-mile-long oil spill on a rural stretch of southern California coastline on Wednesday, following a pipeline break that dumped up to 105,000 gallons of crude into the ocean, blackening a popular state beach.
Plains All-American Pipeline, a Houston-based company, was able to stop the leak after three hours’ work on Tuesday, authorities said. The spilled oil had been carried through a highway storm drain into the ocean near Refugio state beach, 25 miles west of Santa Barbara.
Related: Ruptured pipeline on California coast spills oil into ocean – in pictures