Santa Barbara County gave unanimous approval for an oil-related thing.
I know. Pick those jaws up off the ground!
It was fairly routine—the county Planning Commission gave the go-ahead for an ownership transfer of an asphalt refinery near Santa Maria. But the last time an ownership transfer came before the county, it was denied! (Yes, it was Sable Offshore Corp.)
I guess the legacy of leaving the title in the previous owner’s hands was too much for the county to bear. Greka ran the facility into the ground, and the company got in trouble for it, too. Leaks, spills, and other bad things resulted in $12 million in fines from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA inspected the refinery and saw all the red flags—deterioration, missing ground monitoring wells, etc.
And to top all of that off, the company decided it didn’t need to pay its taxes either.
Then, the company filed for bankruptcy!
Interestingly, the environmental crowd didn’t show up to the Aug. 12 commission meeting with their pitchforks. Even reliably blue Commissioner John Parke seemed to think that things were moving in the right direction with new owner Santa Maria Road Materials, which acquired the refinery.
Parke called the move “incredibly important.”
“In this era of uncertainty we have about what’s going to happen to local oil production, for someone to do this and step in and create such a beneficial use for the county is really something special, and I appreciate it,” Parke said. “It’s a supply for that local asphalt we need.”
Yes indeed, we do need.
“Talk about a win-win,” Parke said.
This refinery was apparently built in the 1930s, if that tells you anything about oil in North County. Asphalt is one of the oil-reliant products that Santa Maria crude is known for. It came up during discussions earlier this year in front of the Planning Commission when the body decided to push forward a ban on drilling new oil wells.
“That’s what we specialize in, as most of the oil production onshore in Northern Santa Barbara County does,” Eric Vasquez with Asphalta LLC told commissioners on April 8. “I believe this ban will hurt people. … You cannot drive an electric car on dirt.”
That ol’ electric car adage even came up on Aug. 12, when Beth Collins, who represents Santa Maria Road Materials, described asphalt as a carbon sink that will be used “on our roads that even my Tesla needs to be able to drive on.”
Wait. I thought Teslas could go off-roading?
She called commissioners’ decision a “no-brainer.”
“You have a current owner/operator and guarantor on these county permits that has an abhorrent record,” she said. “If you don’t adopt the staff recommendation and approve this, you’re actually keeping the prior owner-operator-guarantor on the county permits.”
Touché, Collins.
So, what happens to this refinery after it gets going again and the local oil dries up because Santa Barbara County no longer appreciates the industry that helped it become who it is?
Perhaps that’s why those carbon neutral pitchforks were missing from the meeting.
The Canary lives for a good pitchfork moment. Send one to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in August 20 – August 27, 2026.
