LA Times: Before the sun rose Thursday, Kirk Atwater`s wakeup call was a noxious breeze that filled his bedroom with fumes.
He stepped out of his ranch that overlooks an arroyo in the Ventura hills and saw a creek of thick, black goo traveling through the canyon that was dry just the day before.
A pipeline valve had somehow opened and sent thousands of gallons of crude oil down into an arroyo that flows through the city of Ventura and reaches the ocean near the Ventura Pier.
Atwater, 56, called 911...