An oil spill on the eve of the Memorial Day weekend from a ruptured pipeline in East Los Angeles poured thousands more gallons than first reported into the Los Angeles River, killing wild birds and emitting pungent odors into the homes and businesses of the tight-knit Latino community, the county reported on Tuesday, June 9.
Los Angeles County’s Public Works, public health and business affairs departments are working with county attorneys to learn who was at fault, and bring litigation to recoup millions of dollars spent in an emergency cleanup effort that will continue through the summer, officials said.
“This was one of the largest oil spills into the Los Angeles River in its history,” said Mark Pestrella, director of Public Works told the Board of Supervisors.
While the oil pipeline is no longer leaking, the effects remain, officials said.
Pestrella estimated the cost of the incident could be between $50 million and $100 million.
The board said the crude oil spill caught little media attention, most likely because the media was consumed by a threat of explosion of noxious gas leaking from a chemical tank at the GKN Aerospace plant in Garden Grove that resulted in an evacuation of 50,000 people.
But Fourth District Supervisor Janice Hahn questioned the head of the county’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM), asking why a shelter-in-place order was not issued. Officials said they were relying on state officials from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and its related Office of Spill Prevention and Response, which said the incident did not call for such an order.
The county OEM was criticized by an independent report last September as to why more emergency evacuation alerts had not reached west Altadena residents in the morning hours of Jan. 8, 2025 when the Eaton fire was burning 70% of Altadena homes.
Hahn requested — as part of a response analysis report coming back to the board in 90 days — why the county can’t find other ways besides relying on state and federal agencies to alert people. Barbara Ferrer, head of the county Department of Public Health, said for the first few days her office recommended people stay indoors.
She said many residents and business owners were not aware of what happened.
“Communications is one area where we were not at our best,” she said.
At 3:41 a.m. the morning of Friday, May 22, crude oil began pouring into the busy intersection of Eastern Avenue and Cesar Chavez Avenue in unincorporated East Los Angeles. An underground, crude oil pipeline operated and owned by Pacific Pipeline System running from Kern County to Long Beach was struck by a telecommunications contractor, reported the state Office of Spill Prevention and Response.
Oil seeped into the ground, undermining the street pavement. It also flowed into county storm drains and into the Los Angeles River, down toward the nearby Southeast Los Angeles County cities, the county reported. Public Works and L.A. County Fire Department Hazardous Materials teams were first on the scene, using plastic booms and vacuums to stop the flow of oil from reaching the Pacific Ocean at Long Beach Harbor.
Pestrella said the pipeline owners initially told first responders the spill was small, only about 2,000 gallons. The state oil spill response agency reported on its Facebook page the amount spilled was 24,654 gallons of crude oil, not 2,000.
“We had a lack of information from the pipeline owner,” Pestrella said. “At first, we did not know it was something like 25,000 gallons that were spilled.”
A containment boom is in place in the Los Angeles River and at multiple locations to maintain containment of crude oil in the waterway. Workers work to recovery oil from the waterway at multiple locations utilizing skimmers and vacuum trucks. Crews are also working to remove impacted vegetation, with efforts in place to maximize potential regrowth as seen here on May 29, 2026. (photo by Office of Spill Prevention and Response.)
Using absorbents, plastic booms and vacuums, the county crews cleaned up the storm drain system. They also had to remove oil-soaked vegetation from the river, he said. “I don’t have an estimate as to when all of that will be out of the river system,” he said.
Oil seeping into the ground has bubbled up onto the streets, causing the county to test more soil and remove oil from the parkways and roadways. The two major thoroughfares will have one lane closed in each direction until cleanup is complete, which will last through summer, Pestrella said.
The toll on wildlife was significant, Pestrella said.
As of June 8, the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, consisting of technicians out of UC Davis, reported 27 dead birds collected, while 131 live birds were rescued from the L.A. River. All of those were covered in oil. Out of those rescued, 109 live birds and four eggs collected for incubation from an abandoned nest remain in the group’s care.
An oiled black-necked stilt chick is being cared for by responders from the OWCN. The chick was rescued from the Los Angeles River after an oil spilled from a broken pipe on May 22, 2026 in East Los Angeles. (photo courtesy of Oiled Wildlife Care Network).
These birds included multiple black-necked stilts, Canada geese, Mallard ducks and Western gulls, as well as a single gadwall, double-crested cormorant, brown pelican, Egyptian goose, Brewer’s blackbird and California gull.
Anyone seeing oiled wildlife should not attempt to touch or capture them. Instead, call the OWCN hotline at: 1-877-823-6926.
First District Supervisor Hilda Solis was at the scene right after the spill with members of her staff. Solis said she smelled the odors from the petroleum spill far from the rupture point.
“The odors when I was last there was pretty miserable,” Solis said.
Ferrer said there were no health risks reported by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. She said whenever cleanup efforts intensified, there were more odors. “The odors for some people can be very aggravating,” she said.
Solis also was concerned with the businesses along the two main streets of East Los Angeles that were closed for a while. Now, many businesses see less foot traffic and are affected by lane closures. “One manager told me they lost $10,000 a day,” she said.
In an on-the-street survey done by Kelly LoBianco, the director of the county’s Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), she said 50 businesses told her they lost 75% of their sales.
To file a lost business revenue claim, call the county DEO at: 877-817-5465.
Someone who is not feeling well, or wants information on public health, should call DPH at: 626-430-9821. To report odors, dial: 800-288-7664.
Solis said the East L.A. community has had a disproportionate share of environmental crises, including fumes and toxic releases from the now bankrupt Exide Technologies plant in Vernon.
“Incidents like this oil spill only deepen the inequities faced in this community. Accountability must be pursued swiftly, thoroughly, and without exception,” Solis wrote in a motion to review the response.