The Region - News from Dec. 5, 1986

A gasoline spill that forced the evacuation of about 1,500 people from Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station on Nov. 22 was up to 10 times worse than first reported, environmental experts said. The pipeline company responsible for the accident is under investigation by state and local agencies for possible negligence in causing the spill and tardiness in cleaning it up, an official for a state Water Quality Board said. At the time of the accident a spokesman for San Diego Pipeline Co. placed the amount of unleaded gasoline that spilled from a burst pipeline into a flood channel at 20,000 to 60,000 gallons. But a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game said the actual amount was between 250,000 and 500,000 gallons. Although the spill killed wildlife in a two-mile stretch of channel, a major ecological disaster was averted because dikes kept pollutants from entering the upper Newport Bay state ecological reserve.