Danish offshore support vessel operator Maersk Supply Service will continue providing marine support to The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit engineering and environmental organization working to rid oceans of plastic pollution.

The Ocean Cleanup’s mission is to develop advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. To achieve this goal, the company's aim to stop the inflow via rivers and clean up what has already accumulated in the ocean. Its ultimate goal is reaching a 90% reduction of floating ocean plastic by 2040.

It’s been nearly three years since an oil pipeline ruptured in Santa Barbara County, coating seven miles of beaches with crude oil and killing dolphins, birds and sea lions.

Area parks and fisheries have since reopened. The pipeline has not, and the company that owns it is under criminal indictment. But the financial impacts of the 2015 Refugio oil spill continue to wash up in California.

The latest example: State lawmakers are considering an unprecedented request to spend more than $100 million in taxpayer money to dismantle two offshore oil-drilling facilities — a platform connected to the ruptured pipeline and a manmade island in nearby Ventura County — because the oil companies that were leasing the sites went bankrupt last year.

“Just because they decided to walk away doesn’t mean that we can walk away,” said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, a Democrat from Santa Barbara.

“So right now, the state is holding the bag.”

It’s too soon to say whether the situation is an aberration or a sign of things to come. California has a long history as a major oil-producing state but has more recently embraced environmental policies that require a shift away from petroleum. The Southern California coast is dotted with 31 oil platforms and artificial islands, some of which date back to the 1950s and are in poor condition. The state expects many to be decommissioned in the coming decades as they reach the end of their productive lives.


Oil companies accept responsibility to plug wells and return the ocean to its natural state when they enter leases with the state to drill. The current proposal for taxpayers to foot the bill illustrates what happens when the companies can’t do it.

State officials are asking for $50.5 million to plug and abandon wells at Rincon Island in Ventura County, whose owner declared bankruptcy after being charged with numerous safety violations and a state of disrepair. And they are seeking $58 million to shutter the rig known as Platform Holly in Santa Barbara County, which has been idle since the pipeline owned by Plains All American Pipeline ruptured in 2015 and then shut down, leading Venoco, the company that was leasing the platform, to go bankrupt. In both cases, those costs would cover just the first phase of dismantling. The projects would require more money for the decommissioning stage, likely beginning in 2020.