Will Newsom Act on Sable?

As an almost 70 year-old grandmother who remembers Santa Barbara’s devastating oil spills — the 1969 S.B. Channel disaster and the 2015 Refugio spill that dumped 450,000 gallons of crude oil which spread along 150 miles of coastline — I am alarmed by recent developments that ignore these painful lessons.

On December 17, the State Fire Marshal’s office quietly granted a waiver for critical federal safety measures on the same 100-mile pipeline that failed in 2015, without a complete environmental review. This is the very pipeline where federal regulators identified corrosion and inadequate cathodic protection as causes of the previous spill.

Now, Sable Offshore, a 2020 Texas startup funded 99 percent by Exxon, plans to restart this aging infrastructure in early 2025. The timing is suspicious: Exxon deemed the pipeline too risky to operate, so they sold it to a company without deep pockets — leaving Santa Barbara taxpayers potentially responsible for future cleanup costs.

More troubling still, the Fire Marshal’s office misled our elected officials, Senator Limón and Representative Hart, promising no decisions until after a public hearing meeting in Santa Barbara County. Instead, they issued the waiver with no press release or notification. We only learned of it through Sable’s investor filing. Another interesting fact, the project lead for this waiver decision at the Fire Marshal’s office worked for 14 years at Plains All American — the very company convicted for the 2015 spill.

Governor Newsom, as you pursue your climate legacy here in California, remember that Santa Barbara residents have long memories. We cannot allow this corroded pipeline to restart without proper safety measures and environmental review.

I urge our community to act: Contact Governor Newsom’s office at 916-445-2841 and Secretary Wade Crowfoot at the Department of Energy at 916-653-5656 and voice your displeasure. Write to the California Coastal Commission which has already ordered a cease and desist for unpermitted work by Sable on the Gaviota Coast at SouthCentralCoast@coastal.ca.gov and demand they request an environmental review.

This holiday season, as we gather with family, let’s consider what legacy we want to leave for our children and grandchildren.