Huntington Beach Oil Spill

The amount of crude oil spilled in an offshore pipeline leak in Southern California is believed to be close to 25,000 gallons, or only about one-fifth of what officials initially feared, a Coast Guard official said Thursday.

Two oil-covered birds rescued from the Orange County coastline in the days after an off-shore pipeline leak were released back into the wild Wednesday in Huntington Beach.

Oil has been washing up on Southern California beaches and wetlands all week since a leak in an underwater pipeline from an offshore platform sent tens of thousands of gallons of heavy crude into the ocean waters.

After a crude oil sheen was detected on the waters off the Southern California coast, environmentalists feared the worst. A week later, Orange County and its signature beaches have been spared a potentially calamitous fate, though the long-term toll on plant and animal life remains unknown.

Coast Guard investigators say an underwater Southern California oil pipeline was likely struck by an anchor several months to a year before a major leak spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude. The U.S. Coast Guard says Friday that a large ship may have snagged the massive pipeline off Huntington Beach, but that might not have actually fractured the...