Summerland air quality now being tested with special equipment while oil well capping is taking place

SUMMERLAND, Calif. – An ongoing capping project for leaking offshore wells in Summerland has become an opportunity for special air quality testing.

It's taking place with a custom built mobile unit to do on the spot readings in real time, at many locations.

The well capping began Monday, and the air testing started Thursday.

A former UC Santa Barbara Professor, Ira Leifer, is the head of the Bubbleology Research International and built the air quality testing equipment and it is on a Ford truck.

The data collection will take place right near the beach and leaking wells. It will also be gathered at higher elevations where cleaner air is normally found.

Leifer said "the goal is to understand a little bit what the health impacts are from the oil that is at the sea surface here from the abandoned oil wells and the natural seepage as well as  from any releases in the process of abandoning the wells."

Information from this research will be used as part of a presentation to the State Lands Commission. That agency will decide if more funding should be allocated for future well capping projects. Right now it's $2 million a year.

A mapping of the area is also underway with sophisticated underwater equipment and overhead drones.

That information will help to identify the problem wells that need future capping and may not have been previously known.

Oil in the water this week produced tar balls on the beach. They were collected and taken out in part by the work of the group Earthcomb is using a crew with hand tools and bags.

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