Talk:Ellwood Oil Field

Indians/Tar/Pollution

When I went to UCSB in the mid 70's there was protests by Santa Barbara County to further drilling. California Indians had harvested "beach tar" for Centuries before the Spanish arrived, using it for waterproofing basketry. The tar was from slow undersea leaks and the collected tar was largely free of volatiles due to its long residence undersea. After oil drilling started these undersea cracks enlarged and and the tar became "runnier", more like bunker fuel. Students and others walking on the beach would get black residue on the soles of their feet. The song "Carrie" by Joni Mitchell (who lived SE of there) mentions "beach tar on my feet". Ronald Reagan, Governor of California at the time, over rode County objections to oil drilling. Shjacks45 (talk) 14:54, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

You definitely got "tarred" if you walked on the beach then -- less so now. (In fact it's years since I've gotten tarred while walking the beach here.) However the rate of seeps has decreased dramatically, not increased, and in proportion to the depletion of the reservoir below. See this paper for one study, but there have been several. It makes sense: petroleum reservoirs are under immense pressure, and hydrocarbons seek any route to the surface (the La Brea Tar Pits are southern California's most famous example -- in that case the seep is upward along a fault trace). Reduce reservoir pressure, and less hydrocarbon emerges. Antandrus (talk) 04:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Ellwood bombardment -- first since...?

Hi, I'm the original author of this article. The sources I used (both listed in the references) are the 1975 and 1976 Walker A Tompkins books, both of which I have in hard copy, and both of which make the claim that this was the first naval bombardment of the US mainland since the War of 1812.

Digging a little deeper, I see that a German U-boat attacked shipping at Orleans on Cape Cod in 1918. (I didn't know about this. Learned it on Wikipedia.) If this is considered an attack on the mainland, this would make Mr Tompkins mistaken in his assertion. If however the 1918 U-boat attack was just an attack on shipping -- not a direct shelling of shore installations (as was clearly the case at Ellwood) then Tompkins' original claim stands.

I will have to clarify that this was the first naval bombardment of the US mainland since the War of 1812, since there were clearly land-based attacks in the Mexican-American War and preceding the Pancho Villa Campaign. Antandrus (talk) 02:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense. You say that a German U-Boat only targeted the shipping but you have to remember that the U-Boat entered American waters and launched their shells towards boats at Cap Cod. Attacking shipping anchored in American ports is exactly like targeting the U.S. mainland, since it was also a naval bombardment. The same with Ellwood bombardment of oil ports, Japanese submarines didn't targeted like 20 miles in the mainland, just the oil fields and the shipping which happened to be near the Coast. That's why I felt the assertion that it was the first naval bombardment since the war of 1812 is just plain inaccurate and wrong. XXzoonamiXX (talk) 04:42, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Targeting shipping -- in the water -- versus an onshore oil field, including a railroad bridge and storage tanks -- are two different things. This is probably why Walker Tompkins makes the claim he does. Ships aren't "on the mainland". Anyhow it's cited, and in at least three different sources with a similar wording. Antandrus (talk) 04:58, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

• On this day [on July 21, 1918], people in the Cape Cod town of Orleans were astonished to see a German U-boat surface offshore and begin firing on an unarmed tugboat and the four barges it was pulling. Torpedoes set the tug ablaze and injured its crew, while constant shelling sank the barges. Thanks to the skill and courage of Coast Guardsmen, everyone was rescued. Some of the shells fired from the sub landed on the beach, making this the first time the U.S. mainland had been attacked since the War of 1812 and the only time the country was attacked during World War I. The state had been producing arms, vehicles, and supplies for the war effort and sending soldiers abroad, but no one expected what occurred that Sunday in Orleans. http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=212

• The Attack on Orleans was a naval and air action during World War I which took place on 21 July 1918. A German U-boat opened fire on the American town of Orleans, Massachusetts and several merchant vessels nearby. A tugboat was sunk, but shells fired in the direction of the town landed harmlessly in a marsh and on a beach.....U-156 surfaced and opened fire on the town with her deck guns, then with torpedoes and her deck guns on the 140 feet (43 m) tugboat Perth Amboy, which was surrounded by four wooden barges.....U-156 got away and headed north, where it continued to attack other allied ships. Back in Orleans, a few shells and craters were found on shore; some also were found in the nearby marsh. The area sustained minor damage. The psychological effects on the population of Orleans were immediate as people began reporting the hearing of naval battles off the coast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Orleans XXzoonamiXX (talk) 18:39, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Development plans?

This note is mostly for Antandrus, but others may have local knowledge. Has their been any action on the various producers requests to increase production, on or offshore?

My recollection is, there was a formal rejection of plans to drill (further north?) in state waters, and I recall a SB Co Commissioner writing that the rejection was to discourage others from making such applications in the future. The nerve of these peasants! (/sarc). Some may recall the similarly-imperial rejection of oilco application to truck crude around the broken pipeline last year, on the Goleta coast Lay those dirty oilers off!

Anyone? This is a particular rich example of 'crat/ideologue arrogant ignorance, as the lack of production leads to significant air-quality issues around Santa Barbara (and also Lompoc.) Not that the local greens care. They're saving the planet! And not shopping at Walmart!

Sorry, but these people really set me off. --Pete Tillman (talk) 06:09, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Answering generally -- yes, they want to resume production. Unfortunately the All-American Pipeline is still out of commission. And their trucking proposal was rejected. Stay tuned though.... more shall be revealed.

The real eye-roller for me was the Plains compromise proposal about six years ago that failed to pass the State Lands Commission -- it would have allowed development of the Tranquillon Ridge offshore pool (NW of Santa Barbara, W of Lompoc) in return for decommissioning the 6,000-acre Lompoc field and turning it into a gigantic park. It's a beautiful place and in quite good condition. Even the Sierra Club was on board. But alas, say the word "oil" and the usual things happen.

SB County is an interesting environment for production: it's highly regulated, and that's how the state of the art pollution controls develop. Some people are starting to understand that producing under those conditions is actually a good thing, rather than pushing it all away. And until my car runs on macrobiotic tofu juice, I can see their point. Antandrus (talk) 14:43, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

For those who may wonder why Calif gasoline prices are sky-high, look no further than Santa Barbara County's attempts to end all oil production there -- a story repeated statewide. Alas, California drivers show no signs of giving up their cars (let alone huge pickups & SUVs), and their fuel has to come from somewhere. . . --Pete Tillman (talk) 03:14, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Questionable source

@Dreamyshade: With this edit you added this source to the article. That website, operated by Tom Modugno (User:Tom modugno), is self-published, per WP:RSSELF, and the contact information is a gmail address. Do you consider Mr. Modugno a subject-matter expert, per WP:SPS? All I have been able to locate are opinion pieces by Mr. Modugno in local online news sites: [1][2]. Magnolia677 (talk) 19:38, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

It's an interesting problem, to say the least - I'm the original author of this article, and now ten or more years later I regret a little using the Walker A. Tompkins books so heavily as sources for the 1942 shelling, because Walker A. Tompkins is just so unreliable (I didn't know that long ago), reporting local stories as established fact rather than what they were - stories. Yet he's in print, and his books are readable, widely available, and overall quite wonderful to have. Tom Mondugno does have a reputation as a local history expert, but seems not to be in print. What do you do? Probably the story of the Japanese sub commander coming back for revenge is apocryphal. We could just rewrite the section to remove the story of the 'why'. Antandrus (talk) 19:55, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Magnolia677: Yes, as I wrote on your talk page, I consider Tom a subject matter expert, in accordance with "authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject" at WP:SOURCEDEF. He's quoted as a local historian in this architecture database and in multiple local press articles, such as this one related to Ellwood, another one about that tree, and described as "encyclopedic about Goleta’s history" in this article. He's also published columns of his history research in local newspaper websites, such as this one.

In this specific case, I chose to cite this self-published website not just because Tom has a track record, but also because he shows his work in his post. Tom's post provides much stronger Wikipedia:Verifiability than Tompkin. Tom shows what he found in primary sources, providing screenshots and citations, so a reader could trace the facts themselves if they wanted to. In particular, his screenshot of Kozo's service record clearly show that Kozo was a submarine commander throughout the time when he was supposedly piloting an oil tanker. But it wouldn't be appropriate to do that kind of primary-source synthesis work in this Wikipedia article - instead, we cite the experts who have put together the evidence and drawn informed conclusions.

Also, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS: "Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content." It's reasonable that an authoritative local history expert for an obscure small town is a volunteer doing that kind of work as a side project and a labor of love, not necessarily published in journals or books. Dreamyshade (talk) 04:14, 13 December 2022 (UTC)