Will Sable Oil Begin Drilling Offshore?
Is It Safe?
Who Is in Charge of Deciding?
Does Anybody Know?
By Nick Welsh | February 20, 2025
When I hopped on my bike to meet Lee Danielson for lunch in Montecito a few months ago, I had no thought of making a statement. Statements are not my style. But sometimes they have a way of making themselves heard. This may be one of them.
Let’s Do Lunch
Danielson works as a government affairs liaison for Sable Offshore energy company, which was founded in 2020 and recently arrived in Santa Barbara and into the middle of the always-tumultuous aquatic oil patch right off the coast.
In person, Danielson is square-jawed, solidly built, and on the north side of 70. He’s garrulous, opinionated, unabashedly conservative, smart, and fun.
For two years, Sable and Danielson have been working feverishly to secure the permits and capital needed to restart the Santa Ynez Unit, Exxon’s longtime massive oil and gas operation that has been shut down for the last decade.
That operation includes three offshore drilling platforms — Harmony, Heritage, and Hondo — a 125-mile-long pipeline beginning near Refugio, a gas processing plant, and an oil processing plant. All have been closed since 2015 when the Refugio pipeline ruptured, spilling 142,000 gallons of hot crude oil that oozed under a freeway culvert and eventually drooled down into the ocean.
Next Tuesday — February 25 — the Board of Supervisors will have their first and last chance to have any influence over restarting the pipeline, and thus allowing the three offshore platforms to begin drilling again.
The Refugio FUBAR
The culprit in the 2015 spill was pipeline corrosion: the unhappy love child of multiple systemic safety failures, compounded by the ever-reliable specter of human error. (See Tyler Hayden’s sidebar.)
The pipeline’s corrosion control system failed because of natural soil fluctuations caused by heat and liquid, by the moisture around the pipe insulation, and by the high temperatures needed to move the oil. The corrosion detection system also failed, and, worse of all, the company’s response program failed spectacularly.
After the spill, federal investigators found that the corrosion had spread throughout the pipeline, metastasizing everywhere. The pipeline owner — then Plains All American — was eventually found guilty by a Santa Barbara jury on multiple criminal counts for wholesale negligence.
Who’s in Charge Here?
For a host of reasons — some legal, some historical, others absurd — the county’s jurisdiction over restarting this operation is so limited as to be nearly nonexistent.
The county’s legal advisors and energy planners have told the supervisors that there are no grounds to say no. It is not up to them to determine whether Sable’s liability insurance is enough to cover the costs of a reasonable worst-case oil-spill scenario; it’s only up to them to ascertain whether Sable has filed a certificate of insurance with the proper state agency. It does not matter that no one at the county has reviewed these insurance documents; what matters is that Sable filed the certificate. And Sable did.
All the essential questions regarding the pipeline’s safety measures are in the hands of California state agencies, headquartered in cities far away, with names so confusing that even people working there can’t tell you what the acronyms mean. (See sidebar on regulatory agencies.)
Given the love-hate tango Santa Barbara County has long danced with Big Oil, especially since the first huge oil spill of 1969, its current lack of even the most minimal leverage is unprecedented.
On Tuesday, the supervisors will be asked whether or not to approve the transfer of permits and ownership from Exxon to Sable.
That’s all.
Can Anybody Answer the Questions?
Environmentalists hope to show up en masse to stop the pipeline’s restart that now appears all but unstoppable. They will argue that the supervisors’ attorneys and planners have embraced a tortured, narrowly fearful misreading of the applicable county ordinance 25B, passed in 2001 in response to anticipated risks created when established oil operators — such as Exxon — transfer their assets to less-established operators, such as Sable.
They question whether an old pipeline with 150 documented corrosion spots called “anomalies” can be sufficiently repaired to be safe.
Sable has submitted plans, approved by the State Fire Marshal, to dramatically increase the frequency of the pipeline’s corrosion testing and to lower the thresholds for when repair work is required.
But the enviros also question the efficacy of such testing, noting that prior to the 2015 spill, such tests had failed. (See Pros and Cons sidebar, below)
It’s unclear to what extent the supervisors can or will address these questions. They have been told that these are the purview of the State Fire Marshal or the state Office of Spill Prevention and Response, not theirs.
After Supervisor Joan Hartmann recused herself because her Buellton home is too close to the pipeline, the best the enviros could hope for would be a 2-2 tie. That would qualify the vote as a non-action.
But the last time this happened — a 2-2 non-action tie over Sable’s application to install state-mandated automatic shutoff valves — it led to litigation.
That’s when the supervisors, advised by their own counsel and warned by a judge, formally admitted they have no jurisdiction and could not formally demand pertinent information of Sable.
If the public wants answers, they must turn to the websites of multiple state agencies that separately wield a very limited patchwork of regulatory authority. Some of these agencies, such as the Fire Marshal, have no tradition of public hearings or oversight. For most mere mortals, navigating these agencies is all but impenetrable.
Eyewitness to Disaster
Keeping the Public Blind
By Tyler Hayden
It wasn’t quite a stiff-arm, but it was close. And he wasn’t exactly a goon. More of a mook.
It was the first two hours of the Refugio Oil Spill on May 19, 2015, and information was still very sketchy. We were told it was a “small” leak, but we’d also heard that neighbors were fleeing their homes, the fumes were so bad. I wanted to see for myself.
The campground was already closed, so I parked on the bluffs above the beach and started to pick my way through the chaparral. Before I could get a view, I saw out of the corner of my eye a man wearing a white collared shirt and holding a walkie-talkie lumbering toward me. “Stop!” he yelled.
I froze, worried I’d stepped into some kind of restricted area. But I hadn’t noticed any caution tape, road barriers, or other signs of danger. Just some turkey vultures circling overhead. I could smell the oil. “You can’t be here,” he said. I looked down at the red-and-blue Plains All American Pipeline logo on his left breast. At the time, I’d never even heard of the company.
I showed him my press pass and gave him my spiel — we were on public property, the public had a right to know what was happening, and so forth. I used the word “public” a lot. “I don’t care,” he said. “Leave or you’ll get arrested.” We went back and forth a few more times. He flushed and pulled off his sunglasses. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
We were standing in knee-high brush, and something poked my calf. As I stepped toward a clearer patch of ground, he rushed at me with his arm outstretched. I got a shove to the chest, and he received a few expletives.
Not wanting to get arrested (even though I still didn’t know what for), I turned around and left.
I didn’t have any more physical run-ins with Plains employees after that, but their strict control — and authority — over access and information never waned. Even for people much more important than me.
A few days later, we heard a story from then–County Supervisor Janet Wolf. She’d wanted to visit the county’s emergency operations center at Refugio to get the latest on cleanup efforts and to offer her support. But she was stopped at the gate by a Plains employee demanding to know who she was and what she wanted.
Wolf, never a shrinking violet, made quick work of the guard and, once inside, didn’t hesitate to express her outrage, telling a Coast Guard commander it was “wholly inappropriate” that “our polluter” was telling her or anyone else that they couldn’t enter the building.
It soon became clear that Houston-based Plains not only had a seat at the table of federal, state, and local officials who made up the unified command response team — in many ways, they led it. “They’re very much involved in the decision-making, if not running the show,” State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson said at the time. Local input, she said, was virtually ignored.
In June, a month after the accident, crews were excavating a three-story section of bluff that had trapped around 80,000 gallons of the 140,000-gallon spill. When and how the remaining oil would leak into the ocean was a matter of speculation. “That’s one of the million-dollar questions,” an EPA manager told me.
I watched as dumpster after dumpster was filled with ink-black dirt and trucked a short distance away to a staging area. The soil was tested and classified by contamination level while a Chumash representative in a hazmat suit sifted batches for cultural items. Some of the soil was shipped off to be used in construction projects. The rest went to landfills.
“Crude is a soup of a lot of different chemicals,” the EPA manager explained. They’d already detected benzene, he said, a carcinogen often found in produced oil.
We later learned Plains had developed a plan to “target” specific reporters they deemed “neutral to positive” and invite them to private media briefings so they could “help tell the progress story.” I didn’t make the list.
The Pros and Cons of a Pipeline Restart
[Click to enlarge]
Back to Lunch or Out to Lunch
On the way to meet Danielson, I stopped at a bike shop in the Funk Zone, looking to get a credible illusion of speed and acceleration. I was willing to spring for a major makeover: a new crank, new gear sprockets, new chain rings, and new derailleurs. The mechanic looked at me. He was a mechanic, not a magician.
My bike is 39 years old, one of the last to be assembled by Santa Barbara master frame builder Mike Celmins. Some of the paint, once a beaming sky blue, has been scraped away, leaving much of the tubing naked steel. The mechanic said he had to look inside the tubes for corrosion. If he found rust, I’d have to look elsewhere for credible illusion.
After lunch, I showed Danielson my bike. He was suitably underwhelmed. “You and me,” I pointed out. “We both have the same problem. Corrosion.”
Cute? Danielson shrugged.
A couple of days later, I got a small box that had been mailed to the Independent. It was a muscle-bound variant of WD-40 called “Penetrant.” According to the label, it “frees corroded nuts and bolts,” and “penetrates rust.” Cute? Definitely.
The next time I saw Danielson was at a Chapala coffee shop. I had been bombarding him with emails questioning how Sable planned to make a heavily patched 50-year-old pipeline “good as new.”
If the pipeline’s original technology — known as cathodic protection — had proved so ineffective in 2015, how could Sable ensure the same conditions wouldn’t cause another spill?
Danielson let me know that he would not be answering these questions. He was cordial, but he was not happy about a recent Independent story featuring attorney Linda Krop of the Environmental Defense Center, perhaps Sable’s most implacable and formidable opponent, expounding in an unchallenged format on what a threat the pipeline still posed. Interviewing Krop was Victoria Riskin, herself a committed anti-oil advocate. Actress and Montecito resident Julia Louis-Dreyfus — of Seinfeld and Veep fame — apparently liked the article enough to send it to her social media followers.
Danielson made it clear he was not among them. We talked for two hours. The exchange was warm, lively, and fun, but he saw no point in a he-said-she-said pissing match conducted in the pages of the Independent.
He was, however, willing to share a couple of salient factoids on the state of oil production in California. He said:
California consumes roughly 1.8 million barrels of oil a day. The state produces only 400,000 barrels a day.
Santa Barbara’s offshore oil reserves are the second-largest oil field in the United States next to Texas’s Permian Basin. Sable’s fields have total reserves of 10 billion barrels.
If or when Sable restarts Exxon’s holdings, it would produce 26,000 barrels of oil a day. At full production, it could pump 100,000 barrels a day.
California will continue to import the vast bulk of its oil from places like Iraq and Iran.
The tankers hauling oil from Iran through the Santa Barbara Channel crank out vast quantities of greenhouse gases that don’t show up on any of the emission inventories.
Other Sable representatives have testified that the carbon content of its offshore oil is only one-quarter as high as oil imported from the Middle East. Environmentalists point out that Exxon had been responsible for half of the greenhouse gases in Santa Barbara County, amounting to 350,000 metric tons annually. If Sable is allowed to restart the plant, all those greenhouse gases will come back. Sable says its production will qualify as a net benefit for greenhouse gas emissions.
While those numbers are real, so too is the fact that gas consumption in California has been dropping steadily and far faster than the rest of the nation as a whole. Since 2006, Californians have purchased 16.7 percent less gas. In the past five years, gas consumption dropped by 6.7 million gallons a day. The growth in sales of electric and electric hybrid cars is fueled only in part by strict state mandates. This in turn has triggered a shutdown in refineries, leaving Governor Gavin Newsom somewhat frantic about imminent gas shortages and price increases. The State of California is now considering going into the refinery business itself to fill the expanding market sink hole. Meanwhile, platforms off the coast of Santa Barbara, increasingly, are in the process of being decommissioned.
Oil Patch Blues
During both our get-togethers, Danielson hammered home: “Oil made Santa Barbara.” I think the historical record is a bit more complicated. But to a certain extent, he’s right.
An oil tax levied upon the wells off Ellwood Beach in the 1920s underwrote most of the construction costs for that architectural wonder, the Santa Barbara County Courthouse.
But one can argue just as convincingly that the anti-oil activists have really defined Santa Barbara. Yes, there were oil derricks on the Mesa, and yes, they helped sustain a bubble of affordable middle-class homeownership. But a genteel backlash was already gathering steam.
It was propelled by the bluest of Santa Barbara’s blue bloods. In the early 1950s, two of these were News-Press owner and publisher TM Storke and Mayor John T. Rickard. They had a vision of a smokeless industry rooted in the burgeoning research and development industry that would emanate out of UCSB.
Storke used his considerable political muscle to get UCSB built. Rickard conjured a maneuver to build the airport in county-governed Goleta, but to have the land owned by the City of Santa Barbara, a move so tricky that the legislature passed a law to prevent it from ever happening again.
In the early 1950s, these powers-that-be used their connections to convene a special meeting by a state legislature subcommittee — held in Santa Barbara — to create an oil-free sanctuary in state waters along the city’s coast.
Troubled Waters
In 1969, the waters off the coast of Santa Barbara exploded in a fury. The Union Oil company’s offshore Platform A caused a spill so large that the breaking waves, heavy with black oil, crashed silently on the shore.
The cause of this catastrophe lay at the feet of the federal regulatory agency responsible for oil oversight.
That agency was not only supinely subordinate to oil interests but also adamantly opposed to the public hearings demanded by Santa Barbara’s then elected officials. Instead, they granted Union Oil a waiver so that it did not have to install well casings along almost the entire depth of the borehole.
As a result, the bottom of the ocean exploded.
Thanks to this, Richard Nixon, then president, signed legislation creating the National Environmental Policy Act and a host of environmental protections that have made public hearings and environmental impact reports a regular part of the process.
And yes, when protests blocked oil trucks from entering Stearns Wharf — then controlled by the oil industry — the barricades were filled with hippies and college students, but also with many well-dressed Santa Barbarans just getting out of Easter services.
It might seem unfair to also bring up such egregious corporate scofflaws like Greka Energy, whose disregard for basic safety protocols and environmental protections during the 1980s and 1990s bordered on the pathological.
But it probably is fair to remember that about same time, it was discovered that Union Oil had knowingly hid that its Guadalupe oilfield had leaked eight million gallons of toxic oil solvents, known as diluents, mixed with water into the ground. Pretty much all the diluent-soaked soil under the town of Avila Beach had to be dug up and trucked to toxic landfills throughout the state, leaving the once genuinely rustic town of Avila Beach to be totally rebuilt. Astonishingly, no criminal charges were filed.
An estimated 21,000 gallon oil spill just North of Refugio State Beach coating 4 miles of the shoreline and a sheen 50-100 yards wide (May 19, 2015) | Credit: Paul Wellman (file)
Distrust but Verify
I mention all this not to make the case that all oil companies act in reckless bad faith. Some do; some don’t. Everyone usually means well, and most people are just doing their jobs.
But I am making the case that when it comes to oil, county supervisors need to start with premise “distrust but verify.” With oil, the stakes are simply too high not to ask Sable all the tough questions to which we all should want to know the answers. Even — perhaps especially — if the county’s own staff says that such questions are out of bounds.
The supervisors are understandably gun-shy about getting sued by Sable. When they declined to approve installation of automatic shutoff valves that state law required — automatic shutoff valves, which, had they been installed at the time of the 2015 oil spill, would have minimized the spill — Sable sued. It alleged damages were in the ballpark of $10 billion. When a federal judge told the supervisors they’d lose big-time if they didn’t settle, that was a come-to-Jesus moment for which none of the five were willing to risk a bout of atheism.
I admit I have never been on the receiving end of a $10 billion legal threat. That would make anyone pucker, especially with the high quality of legal counsel Sable has working for them.
But I still hope to encourage the supervisors to be bold, aggressive, thorough, and calm when questioning Sable — and, yes, their own staff.
Let me give you some examples.
One: The county energy planners acknowledged at an October 30 Planning Commission hearing that no one there has read the fine print of the $401 million liability insurance policy Sable says it has to understand what the limitations might be.
Two: The county has not yet tried to figure out how much the 2015 oil spill actually cost or how much another one might cost. Or even how big a spill that might be. The planning staff said it was not considered legally relevant within the constricted confines of what they thought they could ask.
Three: The Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) this week released figures estimating the worst-case spill is 15,269 barrels. By contrast, the 2015 spill was approximately 3,000 barrels. That’s five times worse.
Four: The previous owner — Plains All American — has stated in financial documents the Refugio spill cost $750 million for cleanup, fines, and lawsuits. Plains is still fighting with its own insurance carrier in court for costs incurred during the 2015 spill. According to Sable’s Certificate of Financial Responsibility — approved by OSPR — the company has $101 million worth of liability insurance for the two stretches of the pipeline in question.
Five: County energy planning staff reported the actual cleanup costs of the 2015 spill — minus the fines, penalties, or settlements — hovered between $64 million and $95 million. As for insurance coverage, the only thing staff told the commissioners they could consider was whether Sable had submitted a Certificate of Financial Responsibility to the state’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR). It had. That certificate would cover $100 million.
Good, Bad, Ugly
Lest the supervisors shy away from fixing Sable with a steely eyed Clint Eastwood squint and demand answers to questions of great public import, let me share this scene from the county’s history with Exxon.
Back in 1985, when Exxon was attempting to get all the necessary planning permits for its Santa Ynez Unit, Santa Barbara County discovered that its offshore operations would exacerbate onshore ozone emissions, which at that time exceeded federal air quality standards.
The county’s Air Pollution Control District warned that Exxon’s offshore emissions from platforms located in federal waters more than three miles off the coast would worsen the county’s chances of achieving attainment. When the county broached the issue with Exxon — proposing additional conditions of approval — Exxon’s representative at the time angrily stormed out of the supervisors meeting, famously declaring, “You can stick to your agreement, or you can stick it in your ear.”
For the supervisors, it was a gut-check moment. They were in legally uncharted territory. David Yager, then the 1st District supervisor, was the key swing vote. He voted not to blink. This, in turn, precipitated all-out legal and political warfare.
Exxon had an obvious case. The county, less so. Exxon took its objections to federal court, where it won one round and lost another. The company complained to Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige. Joining Exxon’s side in this was the federal Department of Interior itself, responsible for offshore leasing. But the supervisors had friends in high places, too, and the lobbying effort on all sides was intense. The supervisors didn’t back down. Ultimately, they prevailed, and Exxon agreed to limit its emissions in federal waters.
State, County, or Federal?
Not all showdowns with Big Oil end that way. The supervisors’ luck did not hold in the mid-1980s when they were insisting that automatic shutoff valves be installed on the pipeline being discussed today.
Celeron, the company then building the pipeline, refused and took the county to court, arguing that because the pipeline would traverse multiple states, it did not fall under state or county regulation — only federal. Celeron prevailed. Had the supervisors prevailed, the animal death toll and scale of damage caused by the 2015 spill would have all but certainly been less drastic.
The year after the Gaviota spill, the federal agency overseeing pipeline safety officially declared that the pipeline was no longer an intrastate pipeline. Regulatory oversight was turned over to the California State Fire Marshal.
This could be of interest — or even legal importance. Again, the dispute revolves around automatic shutoff valves, but this time, it was an oil company begging to install shutoff valves and the county was saying no.
Here’s what happened.
After the 2015 spill, Das Williams, then a state assemblymember representing Santa Barbara, introduced a bill mandating that all pipeline companies operating in California be equipped with best available
technology — in other words, automatic shutoff valves. His bill passed with no opposition.
Fast-forward to just two years ago. Williams was then sitting on the Board of Supervisors when Exxon and Sable sought county permits to install 16 shutoff valves — required by the bill Williams had introduced. The planning commission — by a vote of 3-2 — said no, objecting because the pipeline was still corroded with more than 100 patch jobs. It was too dangerous; opponents and skeptics called it “Swiss cheese.”
Way back in 1985, when the original conditions of approval were granted, they had specifically required an “effective cathodic protection system.” But Sable said it would seek a waiver from the state Fire Marshal to allow a corrosion protection scheme other than the now-disgraced cathodic protection one that had failed in 2015.
The commissioners argued, however, that a different system would require it be reviewed as a whole new project, subject to additional environmental review.
State Assemblymember Gregg Hart and State Senator Monique Limón then pressured the head of California’s Department of Interior to agree to hold a public meeting in Santa Barbara before the State Fire Marshal issued any ruling. It was, said Hart, a promise. On December 17, 2024, that promise was broken. The State Fire Marshal declared that Sable’s alternative proposal to control pipeline corrosion was good to go.
The only thing left for the Fire Marshal to do now is approve — or not approve — Sable’s restart plan. The pressure needed to break that promise, most everyone agrees, could only come from the governor’s office.
25B or Not 2 B
After the 2015 spill, Exxon wanted out, and the new company, Sable, was willing to take over. Exxon was so eager to get out of Santa Barbara that it discounted the price of the Santa Ynez Unit by $2.5 billion and loaned Sable $690 million to buy the assets.
For skeptics, the deal looked exactly like a big company offloading its holdings to a smaller company to evade the financial liabilities and responsibilities that come with end-of-life decisions for oil operations.
This is precisely why supervisors enacted ordinance 25B back in 2001: to protect against under-resourced, fly-by-nighters trying to get the last few gulps from the petroleum straw without having the resources needed to handle a spill.
But I’m getting off track.
Sable appealed the planning commission’s automatic shutoff valve denial to the Board of Supervisors, which deadlocked, 2-2. Technically, that’s a non-decision. Sable sued.
State law required automatic shutoff valves; the county could not legally refuse to issue permits necessary to comply with a state law. Ultimately, the supervisors agreed to settle, based on their counsel and a judge, citing language from its 1988 settlement with Celeron that the pipeline qualified as “intrastate” entity. Supervisors bristled at headlines suggesting they had “caved.” You can’t cave, they rejoined, if you never had jurisdiction in the first place.
Greenhouse to Greenbacks
In Santa Barbara environmental circles, there is no greater, more immediate issue than stopping Sable from restarting the pipeline. On what planet does it make sense, they demand, to allow a patched-up old pipeline with a history of failure back in operation?
But even more, what’s fueling the intensity of the opposition is the galloping pace of climate change. If Sable gets the green light, climate activists warn, greenhouse gases released into Santa Barbara’s atmosphere will double.
President Donald “Drill, Baby, Drill” Trump is vowing to undo former President Joe Biden’s decision to declare 626 million acres of offshore real estate off limits to new oil leasing. When the state Fire Marshal greenlighted Sable’s cathodic protection waiver, the federal oversight agency that used to have jurisdiction issued a statement: “No objection.”
Reviewing the Situation
Does this resonate as a David and Goliath analogy? If so, David is wearing an eye patch and armed with a broken slingshot.
County planning staff concluded in the most unequivocal terms that Sable satisfies all the requirements. On October 30, 2024, the county’s planning commission voted 3-1 that they thought so too. When the supervisors hear the matter on February 25 — an appeal of the planning commission vote — for Santa Barbara residents inclined to weigh in one way or the other, it will be their last chance. Given Santa Barbara’s almost-religious fixation with the public process, this lack of opportunity is truly astonishing.
Who Gets to Say What About Sable
Sable Continues to Work on Pipeline
Without Permits Required by California Agencies
By Margaux Lovely
When Martha (yes, the dog from the PBS Kids series Martha Speaks) ate from a bowl of alphabet soup, she lifted her head and began spewing well-constructed English sentences. I’m somewhat jealous of Martha, because when I tried a spoonful of California’s alphabet soup — that is, the mix and mash of regulatory agencies involved in overseeing Sable’s proposed oil pipeline project — I went mute. Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was karma for not watching enough PBS.
For those who have had similar bad luck trying to figure out who gets to say what about Sable’s restart plans, here’s what’s what.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM)
A branch of Cal Fire, OSFM has the most regulatory sway over engineering standards on the pipeline. They will have the final say on whether Sable can restart. Their office requires that a hefty list of conditions be met before the pipeline can start, and Sable has met many of them to date: Sable has installed automatic shutoff valves and received first-of-their-kind state waivers, holding the oil company to different operational safety standards due to a lack of corrosion protection along the pipeline. Currently, an approved risk analysis that former owner Exxon submitted in 2021 still applies, but an amended risk analysis submitted by Sable in April 2024 was denied by the Fire Marshal. OSFM requires that Sable submit and abide by an integrity management plan, complete all deferred maintenance items and the conditions laid out in the Consent Decree, and gain approvals from other involved agencies before the Fire Marshal can approve their restart plan, which has already been submitted.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR)
OSPR deals with prevention, preparedness, and response to potential oil spills. Sable has submitted a few versions of their oil spill contingency plans, most of which OSPR has ruled deficient. Fish and Wildlife — separate from OSPR — also issued a notice to Sable for Fish and Game code violations in December. This forced Sable to stop work on Fish and Wildlife property. OSPR determined in October that Sable has financial responsibility for up to $101 million to respond to a spill from each of the three pipeline portions (subsea pipeline from offshore wells to Gaviota, Gaviota to Sisquoc, and Sisquoc to Pentland). It took two emails, three follow-up texts, and 10 days (six of which were past our initial deadline) for OSPR to confirm this information.
The California Coastal Commission (CCC)
CCC deals with all work in the coastal zone. It issued Sable its first cease-and-desist order in November because they were working on the Gaviota Coast part of the pipeline without permits. The commission told Sable to apply for after-the-fact permits and for any future work along the coast. Sable contends the work is routine maintenance allowed under their current permits. Santa Barbara County agrees with Sable, but the CCC does not. The original cease-and-desist order expired on February 10. Sable began working in the coastal zone again without applying for permits. The CCC then issued a second cease-and-desist order on February 18. The same day, Sable filed a complaint against the commission in Santa Barbara Superior Court, claiming they overstepped their jurisdiction in issuing a second stop-work order. Both parties are coordinating with the federal government to determine how a federal consistency review might look.
California State Lands Commission (SLC)
State Lands has not yet decided whether to approve the transfer of state water leases from Exxon to Sable despite months of closed-session discussions with property negotiators. Their next meeting is scheduled for February 25 — the same day the Board of Supervisors is set to vote on a similar matter. However, Sable’s ability to restart operations is not contingent on the SLC’s decision.
California Department of Parks and Recreation
The department is in charge of granting easements for pipelines through State Parks’ property — in this case, a four-mile stretch of the Gaviota State Park. Sable’s easement expired in 2016. Since then, State Parks has been granting permits for repair work on a case-by-case basis. In December, it requested a full project description from Sable to evaluate their request for a new easement.
Regional Water Quality Control Boards
The Central Coast and Central Valley water boards are tasked with ensuring the region’s water supply remains clean and abundant. After discovering unauthorized waste discharge into Santa Barbara County’s waterways, the Central Coast board issued violation and noncompliance notices to Sable in December. They also requested Sable apply for the appropriate permits.
California’s Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM)
CalGEM must ensure that oil facilities comply with federal, state, and local regulations. Their approval is not necessary for Sable to restart their pipeline. However, CalGEM is working with other listed agencies to ensure that Sable’s facilities have an adequate oil spill contingency plan, a pipeline management plan, and adhere to stringent testing and monitoring standards. In December, CalGEM notified Sable that its facilities would need additional inspections, and informed them of production and bonding requirements.
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