By Andrew Christie, Chapter Director
As you may know, ExxonMobil wants to crank up three dormant offshore oil rigs and its Las Flores oil processing station, mothballed by the 2015 Refugio Beach oil spill.
Phase one means permitting a fleet of oil tankers to run up the coast to Santa Maria, turn right on Highway 166, traverse the Cuyama River basin to Kern County, unload, turn around, and do it again – 70 trucks, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Those initial plans have now taken the form of Santa Barbara County Planning Commission Project Case # 17RVP-00000-00081, an application to truck offshore oil along Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Kern County highways, along with a final Environmental Impact Report which the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission will be considering at public hearings on Sept. 2nd and 9th. The report concludes that the project would inflict significant, unavoidable impacts on wildlife and cultural resources in the event of an oil spill from a tanker truck.
The most notable aspect of the report is its total omission of the crank-up-the-offshore-oil-rigs part of the plan. If you want to present planners with a version of your project that contains a reduced number of environmental impacts, not mentioning them is certainly one way to go.
But it’s not a good way. “The county’s Final Environmental Impact Report fails to disclose the devastating impacts that will result if ExxonMobil is allowed to resume oil drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel and truck oil along our scenic highways,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, which represents Get Oil Out! and Santa Barbara County Action Nework. “ExxonMobil’s proposal will result in more oil spills, air pollution, and increased climate change at a time when we need to pursue clean energy alternatives.”
The year before the Refugio spill shut it down, Exxon’s Las Flores Canyon facility was the biggest emitter in Santa Barbara County, accounting for 281,616 metric tons of greenhouse gas, 59.4 tons of volatile organic compounds, and 38.9 tons of PM2.5 -- particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size. Harvard researchers have now found that “A small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to a large increase in the COVID-19 death rate.”
Residents, businesses, and local governments in SLO County need to impress all of the above upon Santa Barbara County, the project’s sole permitting authority, ASAP. It’s the only way we’re going to get a say.
Morro Bay and the City of SLO were the first to do so. San Luis Obispo pointed out that the trucking route “would pass through critical habitat for several species protected as threatened or endangered under the federal ESA, including red-legged frogs, California tiger salamanders, and Southern California steelhead, which are highly susceptible to toxic crude oil,” and that the project “would ensure ongoing operations of aging offshore drilling platforms into the foreseeable future, which is fundamentally inconsistent with California's legislation and executive orders focused on deep decarbonization and carbon neutrality.”
Goleta and the City of Santa Barbara have conveyed similar sentiments. So have the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation, 350 Santa Barbara, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Defense Center, Food and Water Action, GOO!, SBCAN, Sierra Club, UCSB Academic Senator Esmeralda Quintero-Cubillan, and Surfrider Foundation - Santa Barbara County Chapter.
At its August 17 city council meeting, the Grover Beach City Council will have the opportunity to do likewise. We all need to call in to that virtual meeting to tell the council why this project is a bad idea and ask them to send Santa Barbara County a letter of opposition to the Exxon oil trucking project ASAP.
On August 17, you can make a public comment during the city council meeting by calling (805) 321-6639. The phone line will open just prior to the start of the meeting at 6 p.m. If you can’t make the call, you may submit comments via email to gbadmin@groverbeach.org prior to 6 p.m. Monday. Your written comments will be read aloud during the city council meeting.