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MyspaceNote: The Greka report, mentioned below, that will be discussed by the Board of Supervisors is now posted online.
County Fire Capatain Eli Iskow updated area media today on the progress of oil spill clean-up at the Greka-Davis Tank Battery facility. On January 5, an apparent machine malfunction resulted in 84,000 gallons of crude oil spilling into a seasonal tributary of the Sisquoc River. Iskow said that both the California Department of Fish & Game and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency are helming the project, which has entailed the use of a self-contained breathing apparatus - not unlike a scuba unit - for workers attempting to remove oil pooled beneath the floor of the County Road Yard building located near 5017 Zaca Station Road. Much of the oil that had spilled into the tributary, however, has been cleaned.
As reported in a news story in this week’s print edition of the Independent, Iskow also noted that a presentation on this particular Greka incident is scheduled to be presented to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors at its January 15 meeting in Santa Maria. Contained within this report are the following three facts, which Iskow said would answer questions County Fire has been receiving lately.
First, County firefighters have responded to an estimated 400 incidents at Greka facilities since the company arrived in Santa Barbara County in 1999. The estimated cost for this activity is between $1 and $2 million.
Second, since 2003, Greka mishaps have collectively spilled 500,000 gallons of crude oil. This number, which the County obtained from Greka representatives, is alleged by Iskow’s report to be “far far greater than all other county operators combined during the same period.”
And third, the County Fire Prevention Division has “found large discrepancies between numbers reported by Greka and numbers quantified by regulatory and oversight agencies.”
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Jake Blues, in the movie "The Blues Brothers" from 1980:
"Honest... I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD."
That's Greka's excuse, too.
CharlesB (anonymous profile)
January 12, 2008 at 2:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Their spokesman Mike Stoker has been singing the blues himself lately and the quotes are even better than the movie ...
"(a) It's the government's fault, they signed off on the eqipment...
(b) It's our alarm company's fault ...
(c) it's the fault of the last company who sold us the shoddy equipment ....
(d) it's no one's fault since accidents are gong to happen no matter what ....
(e) it's Pedro Nava's fault since we had to send all of our employees to the hearing to take up all the seats...
(f) it's God's fault since the rains caused the pumps to fail....
(g) its the fault of the mystery saboteur ..."
And the list goes on.
Since I spoke up at the January 4 hearing about the problems at Rincon Island the workers have provoked my neighbors into harassing me here in Mussel Shoals. Unfortunately for them, the only neighbors they could enlist are a few local idiots that they give the gate code to so they can jump off the pier during high surf. It's going to be just wonderful for the State of California when someone is injured and the State gets sued as well.
RonAustin (anonymous profile)
January 14, 2008 at 3:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)