Last year an oil tanker crashed on Highway 166 and spilled 4,533 gallons of oil into the Cuyama River. Someone certainly needs to be held accountable for this disaster, but is blame only to be placed on the truck driver who was charged? What about the fossil fuel company that decided to transport crude oil on a windy, notoriously dangerous two-lane road that runs next to a river? The driver should have been more careful, but wasn’t this somewhat inevitable when the project was approved?

And yet the county is considering allowing more trucks on this dangerous highway. ExxonMobil wants to increase oil trucking across the county by 70 trucks per day, seven days a week on Highways 101 and 166. In addition to the risk of more oil spills and vehicle accidents, this project would also increase emissions, create poorer air quality, and prolong our reliance on fossil fuels.

ExxonMobil should withdraw this dangerous project and decommission its offshore oil platforms as others have done. If it does not, the county Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors should deny this project.

Nadia Lee Abushanab,
advocacy and events director
Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN)

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