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Yahoo!Greka Energy followed through its longstanding threat and filed suit against Santa Barbara County and its petroleum administrator, Michael Zimmer, in U.S. District Court on January 21. The lawsuit alleges that a “repeat offenders” ordinance enacted on January 13 is unconstitutional. Greka, the largest onshore operator in Santa Barbara County, claims the ordinance unfairly lumps the same company’s non-offending facilities with its spill-prone counterparts. Should one facility fail and get shut down, the county, under the code, can also shut down non-offending facilities. The company also questioned the county’s definition of the term “high-risk operator,” which the ordinance defines as an oil company whose facilities have suffered an inordinately high number of spills in a given year. Greka has good reason to be worried about the ordinance’s affect on business, as its recent history for keeping oil inside pipes has been less than stellar. In December 2008 alone, more than 12,000 gallons of crude oil and produced water was spilled over a series of four incidents. Three of those spills were from the same location. Greka believes that the county will try to use these recent spills against it and name it a high-risk operator even though the ordinance wasn’t in effect during these spills. That “controversy,” the lawsuit claims, “would be unconstitutional and would violate Greka’s rights.” The lawsuit was on the Board of Supervisor’s closed-session agenda this week. Chief Assistant County Counsel Michael Ghizzoni said the county believes the amendments to the ordinance are “on solid legal ground.”
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The law treats corporations like individuals in most ways save one -- there is no three strikes law for corporations. There should be. Greka is a repeat offender -- we can't get through a month without an oil spill from these nitwits. They drip with contempt for the environment, the law, and people of our county. Greka should be shut down for good, their assets liquidated for the benefit of the taxpayer (who has repeatedly been burdened responding to their mess), and their managers sentenced to a nice long jail term, during which they can ponder whether their sick and twisted business philosophy really is the best way to go.
P.S. Have you seen the PR ad Greka is running on TV? They come off like first-class scumbags even when they're trying make nice for the camera.
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treedom (anonymous profile)
January 30, 2009 at 10:10 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Treedom: The current punishment for production spills is: 1.) the producer must report it even if it occurs on his own property over areas having hundreds of spills in the past, or even areas where open pit storage was OK 40 years ago, 2.) he gets swarmed by regulators, all demanding things, and all getting paid very well (by him), and 3.) if the spiller is Greka, the swarm is larger, and includes politicos preening for the cameras.
All of this costs money. Big money in Grekas case. If its punishment you want...you have it. And by the way, the oil gets cleaned up every time by every spilling operator.
Perhaps in your perfect fantasy world, operators dont spill. Go ahead and have that fantasy. Shop for all your oil and oil-derived products with the one you find pure enough. Maybe you could let us know who that is..
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nuffalready (anonymous profile)
February 1, 2009 at 7:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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