Refugio NRDA Exposure Zones

On May 19, 2015, a pipeline owned ruptured in Santa Barbara County, California, near Refugio State Beach. An estimated 21,000 gallons of the oil flowed overland from the break site into the Pacific Ocean and spread across the marine environment. NOAA and our state and federal partners are investigating these impacts and will determine the amount of restoration needed to return the environment to the condition it was in before the spill and to compensate the public for environmental degradation from the time of the spill until recovery.

This layer depicts the NRDA established oil exposure zones of the Refugio Beach Oil Spill. Zones of high, medium and low were established after a review of data-sets that characterized the level of shoreline oiling that occurred from the spill.