Not So Deadly

In the anguished days immediately following the first great leak from Union Oil Company's well in Santa Barbara Channel, scientists warned that animal and plant life in and around the affected waters might be permanently damaged. In retrospect, their dire predictions seem to have been overstated.

A study conducted by a team of University of California researchers discloses that the initial fears were exaggerated.

As one researcher says: "The most serious problem is an esthetic one. It just looks terrible."

When the well first blew out, the problem was certainly serious. Hundreds of birds died in the sepia goo. Lobsters, clams, mussels, fish and untold other small ocean creatures were destroyed.

But where scientists, the press and an outraged public erred was in the assumption that the destruction would continue.

Dr. Carl Hubbs, professor emeritus of marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, stated flatly at the time that the channel "will never be quite nat ural again." Now, four months later, the channel's ecology seems to have been restored to virtually its natural state -- al though oil seepage continues to smear city beaches.

In making their predictions, some of the scientists harked back to two ear lier oil disasters -- the wreck of the tanker Tampico off Baja California and the rupture of the Torrey Canyon off the English coast, both of which devastated marine life. While the Tampico carried partially refined and relatively volatile diesel oil, the oil seeping up into Santa Barbara Channel was unrefined crude, which is considerably less lethal. More over, the Santa Barbara oil spill was spread over a vast expanse of sea and did not wash up onto the beaches immediately. Much of it lingered on the waves before wind and tide carried it ashore. In the interim, it apparently lost much of its potency. In the case of the Torrey Canyon, the real killers were the chemical detergents used to cleanse the sea, which British experts concluded caused as much as 90% of the damage to plant and animal life. In Santa Bar bara, nontoxic dispersal agents were used, and only in carefully regulated amounts.

While the new report downgrades the damage done to date, it does not say that the channel will escape unscathed.

No one knows what the long-range effects on marine life may be as a result of the continuing oil seepage. In any case, it appears that the offensive derricks will be around for decades to come. Last week a presidential panel recommended that drilling on the Union lease site, which has been halted for four months, be resumed. The panel contended that the best way to stop the leak is to exhaust the oil reservoir un der Union's platform A -- an undertaking that could last 20 years or more.

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