Let’s put this messy oil spill in perspective. The NATURAL oil seepage in the Santa Barbara channel is THOUSANDS of times bigger than this 22,000 gallon oil spill. Consider this from a recent study done by scientists at UC Santa Barbara. Here’s an excerpt from this 2009 article on the study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090513130944.htm

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Twenty years ago, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez was exiting Alaska’s Prince William Sound when it struck a reef in the middle of the night. What happened next is considered one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters: 10.8 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the pristine Alaskan waters, eventually covering 11,000 square miles of ocean.

Now, imagine 8 to 80 times the amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez accident.

According to new research by scientists from UC Santa Barbara and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), that’s how much oil has made its way into sediments offshore from petroleum seeps near Coal Oil Point in the Santa Barbara Channel. Their research, reported in an article being published in the May 15 [2009] issue of Environmental Science & Technology, documents how the oil is released by the seeps, carried to the surface along a meandering plume, and then deposited on the ocean floor in sediments that stretch for miles northwest of Coal Oil Point.
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Go to the article for the full write-up.