Santa Barbara County Folds to Sable

The Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors threw in the oil towel when it decided to settle the lawsuit brought by Sable Offshore on August 30. The offshore oil company had sued the supervisors and the County Planning Commission after they did not allow Sable to construct automatic shutoff valves on oil pipelines running through the Gaviota Coast.

Sable is looking to repair and restart the pipelines, which were originally owned by Plains All American when they ruptured in the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill. At that time, the lawyer representing the affected landowners, Barry Cappello, described the pipelines as “Swiss cheese.” They have been out of commission ever since.

The conditional settlement agreement with the county guarantees full dismissal of Sable’s lawsuit within “15 days of final installation of all 16 underground safety valves in the County.” Under Assembly Bill 864, safety valves must be installed on all new or replacement pipelines in environmentally sensitive areas — safety measures that were not installed on the pipeline at the time of the 2015 spill.

In 2023, the supervisors voted on whether to allow Sable to construct automatic shutoff valves on the pipeline. The vote was tied 2-2. Supervisor Joan Hartmann recused herself due to her home’s proximity to the pipeline. Supervisors Das Williams and Laura Capps voted against allowing the valves, and Steve Lavagnino and Bob Nelson voted for them. It was a stalemate that, in fact, prevented Sable from acting.

According to Sable’s September 3 filing with the Securities and Exchanges Commission, “the County does not have jurisdiction over … installation of 16 new safety valves.” In the same document, Sable affirmed that it expects to begin operating the Santa Ynez Unit (SYU) in the fourth quarter of this year.

Still standing in Sable’s way, however, are the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California State Lands Commission — both of which must give their thumbs-up before Sable can bring crude offshore oil back to Santa Barbara.

As required by law, Sable submitted an oil spill contingency plan, which was supposed to outline the worst-case scenarios resulting from a potential oil spill, to Fish and Wildlife. When the Santa Barbara–based Environmental Defense Center (EDC) requested the document, Sable offered a redacted version to Fish and Wildlife to pass on to the EDC. Fish and Wildlife, seeing no basis for the redactions, threatened to release the unredacted contingency plans. Sable sued Fish and Wildlife and the EDC in July as a result, citing security concerns.

By the end of August, Sable was ordered by the court to release the unredacted version under the Public Records Act.

In that report, Sable unredacted the SYU’s worst-case spill volume — zero. It appears that Sable based its report on the fact that the pipeline is not yet operational. Fish and Wildlife is expected to request a revised report that considers active oil transport through the pipelines.

However, Sable did report that, in a potential rupture, 41,889 barrels of oil “could drain, by gravity alone” out of the pipeline’s most vulnerable point. That would be about 14 times the amount that seeped into the ocean during the Refugio spill.

The Environmental Defense Center — which has pushed back on the legal front against Sable’s attempts to restart the SYU — emphasized this at a Goleta rally where the California State Lands Commission met on August 29.

State Lands was considering Sable’s applications to transfer the state water leases from the current owner, ExxonMobil, to themselves. A decision is expected to be issued at the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025.

More than 15 speakers from the public urged the commissioners to deny the application, which, if approved, would be a critical step toward a Sable pipeline restart. Chumash elder Mariza Sullivan stated the objections clearly: “No more broken pipelines. No more broken promises.”