Along the Southern California coast, tens of thousands of oil wells are sitting next to scenic beaches, dotting coastal mountains, and even occupying residential blocks of urban Los Angeles. Platforms on the Pacific Ocean pull oil from deep-sea wells and send it to the mainland via pipelines on the seafloor. Onshore and off, California's oil and gas industry persists, despite state goals to cut back carbon emissions and a legacy of numerous environmental disasters.

In terms of volume, the recent pipeline leak near Huntington Beach (at least 126,000 gallons of crude oil released) pales in comparison to some of Southern California's previous environmental disasters.