1969

In January, an oil platform blowout in California's Santa Barbara Channel spilled roughly 4 million gallons of crude oil over 12 days, as workers struggled to stem the flow. The U.S. Coast Guard added data from this incident to the lessons learned by U.S. observers of the Torrey Canyon cleanup in a report submitted to the Department of Transportation. This report marked an important first step toward improving the Coast Guard's oil spill response capabilities.