Could the California oil spill have been detected sooner?

USA Today quoted Natalie Simpson in a story about a possible cause of the Amplify Energy pipeline breach that spilled up to 144,000 gallons of oil off the coast of Southern California. Simpson said Amplify’s own spill response plan says it should be able to detect a leak that amounts to 1% of the pipeline flow within about 50 minutes. “If what people were smelling on Friday in Huntington Beach was in fact this oil, than more than that would have already been leaked,” Simpson said.