"Tar Balls on Los Angeles-Area Beach Linked To Santa Barbara Oil Spill"

"At least some of the tar balls found littering one of southern California's most popular beaches last month were matched by lab tests to crude oil that spilled from a ruptured pipeline along the Santa Barbara coast about 100 miles away, state and pipeline company officials said on Monday.

Sticky, black oil globs began washing up along more than 6 miles of Manhattan Beach, just southwest of Los Angeles on May 27, prompting health officials to briefly close a stretch of shoreline in the area.

Another stretch of coast was placed off-limits to the public in Long Beach a week later after a wave of tar balls washed up there, and swarms of oil blobs have come ashore as away as San Clemente in Orange County, about 60 miles farther south."

Steve Gorman reports for Reuters June 23, 2015.