It's Time to Educate Santa Barbara about Natural Oil Seeps!

Up until approximately 30 years ago, Santa Barbara schools would include facts about the offshore natural oil and gas seeps (located in the Santa Barbara Channel) within their curriculum. Unfortunately, today the knowledge of why we have tar on our SB beaches is not as readily available to both students and teachers. Often the offshore oil production take the blame for oil slicks in the water and tar on our white sand beaches, while the fact is actually just the opposite: offshore oil production has contributed to a cleaner marine environment in Santa Barbara.

This morning, SOS received a testimony from a concerned parent of a Santa Barbara student:

“I am a native to SB. My son came home and told me about a teacher (high school) that was almost in tears about getting tar on her feet on a SB beach and blamed the oil platforms for the problem.  I had to explain to him that it's from "natural oil seeps" in the SB Channel and that long before we were here the Chumash used the tar from the beaches to repair their boats. I told him the teacher was wrong to tell the class the tar was from oil platforms.  Then I did a quick search on google and found you. Your website is very helpful and educational.”

This exemplifies some of the issues in the Santa Barbara community that we at SOS California would like to address:

1. The lack of information about the oil in the water/tar on the beaches due to changes in the local educational curriculum - and the world-wide phenomenon that is unique to Santa Barbara (home to the 2nd largest offshore oil & gas seeps in the world!)
2. The perpetuation of myths from our children's ill-informed teachers/educational system (where is our environmental educators on this?)

Help us inform our local community about the concerns with natural oil seepage! We would like to invite any Santa Barbara local to the discussion.

• What are your experiences with tar on the beaches?
• What did you learn about it in school?
• How do you think we can change the way we educate our community about these issues?

Please SHARE your experience, it is valuable to us, you and the Santa Barbara community!