What to Do About Greka

The reports in last week’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting about Greka’s “cleanup” efforts were shamefully misleading. So were the reports of the County’s oilfield inspections during the past few weeks.

It is true that Greka had hired a contractor to assist with cleanup of two creeks. As of Monday this week, that contractor was no longer on the job. Anyone who looks at the creek along Palmer Road (go look!!) can see that the cleanup is far from complete. Even if the cleanup of these two creeks were to take place, there are still 400+ spills (a half million reported gallons of pollutants) in the county that have yet to be resolved. County Fire Department records for the past several years (available for public review) show clearly that Greka has not complied with a single cleanup directive from the Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Unit (HMU). Often, the cleanup requirements from federal and state responders are far less rigorous than those from the HMU. So Greka has a general policy of non-compliance with HMU, and still the County continues to blindly issue Greka’s permits to operate.

And speaking of the HMU, guess who has been specifically asked not to participate in the County’s inspections of late? That’s right, the HMU inspectors were involved in the first two inspections, and, perhaps because of the shocking number of violations they documented (?), were subsequently pulled off the project. (….unlabeled “out of service” pipes actively spewing deadly gas!!??…..oozing crude oil drain valves stuffed with old t-shirts!!??….no problem!) Keep this in mind when listening to County staff’s glowing accounts of progress being made.

It is one thing to tip-toe around a big, slovenly company with a well-known track record of absolutely unsafe practices, gross negligence, and open disregard for all things decent and upright just because they have money, influence, and effective attorneys. It is quite another to passively help such a company break the law by ignoring the obvious.

Take a breath Anonymouse.

Tell us please if you have been hurt or need medical attention from any one (or all) of the half million gallons of pollutants not yet resolved in the county?

Has anyone been hospitalized due to Greka crude oozing from valves stuffed with t-shirts?

Has anyone even needed a Band Aid?

Is the sky really falling in....or do you simply have a flair for the melodramatic?

Greka operates an oil drilling facility in the Pacific Ocean, right off shore in Mussel Shoals. It is that small Island that you all see, with a bridge running to it, when driving on the 101 just South of Carpinteria. Do you want Greka to spill oil in the ocean just like they've done on their own land? Unlike Greka's facilities in Santa Barbara, the land for the island in Ventura County is not even owned by Greka. It is owned by the State.... essentially you own it. When Greka was pumping they were only giving a couple hundred thousand a year in royalties to the State. It costs the State more in enforcement expenses. Now Greka is no longer pumping and this is a reason under State law to revoke their production agreement with the State. Please call Assemblyman Pedro Nava's office at (805) 483-9808 and ask him what he can do to shut down Rincon Island and make it a marine preserve.

If there was a chicken farm up in the hills NW of Santa Barbara, and another west of Santa Maria with the winds blowing south west into Santa Barbara, and winds blowing East into Santa Maria, and they were called Greka Farms and they really stunk to high heaven you can bet Greka Farms would then be shut down, and shut down over night.. The Problem here is Oil from our county ground doesn't stink, but something does on the County Board, and it smells of money and the good old boy system of Republican politics pure and simple....If there's an inithative, and a want, Greka would have been a closed Oil Farm long ago, probably after the first spill.. Yup it smells like bad mangement at Greka, and county board members who are in denial of whats happening. Were being held up and there's no Sheriff watching the Bank!

The Earth has a far worse spill record than Greka. It spills about 100 barrels a day over the county. Thats over 1.5 million gallons a year. Where is the outrage about that?

Shouldn't we put the Earth out of business? Shouldn't we at least cancel Earth Day?