The City of Buellton is in a unique situation relative to Sable Offshore Corporation’s crude oil pipeline — yet city residents’ and city officials’ concerns are being ignored.
For the pipeline’s entire 122-mile length, Buellton is the only town it runs through, crossing the city’s residential neighborhoods and the main park. A potential catastrophic pipeline rupture in Buellton poses risks to people, homes, property, roads, and parks. It’s a situation that doesn’t exist elsewhere in Santa Barbara County, but agencies seem to be ignorant of Buellton’s unique risks.
To the Buellton City Council’s credit, the mayor sent a letter to the County Board of Supervisors explaining Buellton’s perspective and the need to ensure protection of residents and property before the pipeline restarts. The mayor’s letter focused on safety issues and not on oil production issues, standing up for residents’ safety when so many county, state, and federal agencies, and the oil companies, don’t seem to care.
The pipeline’s original permits from 1988 didn’t address Buellton’s unique situation because the homes that are now above the pipeline didn’t exist when the pipeline was constructed in the late 1980s. In fact, the City of Buellton didn’t even exist, as it incorporated in 1992. The 1988 permits logically focused only on risks to largely vacant land and, of course, to sensitive habitats, but not to residential developments. Now the Buellton landscape above the pipeline is dramatically changed from what it was 37 years ago.
Buellton’s Specific Need and Request. Sable can best address Buellton residents’ safety by realigning the pipeline outside city limits as Exxon had proposed in 2017. After the pipeline ruptured on the Gaviota coast in 2015, Exxon incurred huge costs and realized the pipeline was a liability, especially in Buellton. Exxon knew a realignment around Buellton would reduce the company’s financial liability. The pipeline in Buellton would have been filled in and left in place; no need to dig it up. A draft Environmental Impact Report was prepared that fully describes the project. Realignment might have been completed by now if Sable hadn’t withdrawn the project application from County Planning.
If the pipeline were moved to avoid Buellton, the county should condition the pipeline’s permits to reflect this changed landscape, by addressing the capabilities of Sable (or any other owner) to manage the pipeline safely and to handle any problems that might occur in an urban residential environment.
Ignorance of Buellton. If the pipeline remains in place in Buellton, Sable’s plans should be revised:
• to acknowledge the city’s existence,
• to describe how Sable will prevent or detect leaks and breaks, and
• to explain how Sable would address worst-case scenarios of pipeline rupture in Buellton.
Currently, both Sable’s Transition Plan and its Contingency Plan describe the pipeline’s route without mentioning that it goes through Buellton’s neighborhoods and principal park. Sable’s Transition Plan, in Section 15.2, includes a “Description of Pipeline Corridor,” and names specific creeks, canyons, roadways, and ranches. It states: “The pipeline crosses the Santa Ynez River west and south of Buellton and continues north across the Purisima and Solomon Hills.” Incredibly, this description neglects to say the pipeline goes through Buellton and its residential neighborhoods, thus implying the pipeline bypasses the city. Are Sable’s managers really so ignorant about Buellton?
When Sable’s Director of Government Affairs attended a recent Buellton City Council meeting on February 27, he said he’d been coming to the Santa Ynez Valley for 50 years, but he admitted, “I had no idea Buellton was a city.” (See Buellton CityTV’s online archived meeting videotape at 27:53 minutes.) In Santa Barbara County, only two local governments are directly affected by the pipeline: the county and Buellton. Sable’s Government Affairs Director should have known that Buellton has a city government, but ignorance about Buellton seems widespread at Sable.
Unique Costs in Buellton. The pipeline’s location in Buellton should raise red flags regarding Sable’s financial capabilities. Sable may not be financially able to handle costs from a major pipeline rupture in Buellton, where costs would likely be higher than in a more rural landscape. Sable doesn’t have deep pockets as Exxon does. Sable’s only assets are the oil production and pipeline facilities which it acquired in Santa Barbara County. In fact, Sable was able to purchase those facilities only by borrowing over 95 percent of the money from Exxon itself, according to oil industry sources such as the Houston Oil Blog. If there is a major pipeline rupture in Buellton, Sable probably doesn’t have the financial resources to cover the costs of impacts to people, property, and the environment, while also paying back the loan from Exxon, especially if the pipeline is again shut down.
Unless Sable realigns the pipeline outside Buellton, the company’s ignorance of Buellton doesn’t bode well if breakage occurs within the city limits.
Len Fleckenstein is a retired water conservationist with Santa Barbara County and formerly worked for the U.S. EPA in a number of roles involving communities, environmental auditing, and water pollution control.
