It seems like the oil spills don’t stop in Santa Barbara County. First, there was the Refugio State Beach pipeline rupture on May 19. Then, on June 3, a teeny pipeline break dumped less than a barrel of oil onto the sidewalk in front of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office on Foster Road.
Now, another small pipeline breach leaked around five barrels of oil (roughly 210 gallons) near Cuyama just past the San Luis Obispo County line on July 20, according to Dave Zaniboni, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department’s public information officer.
According to Zaniboni, Engine Company 41 responded to the call of an oil spill beyond the Santa Maria River on the San Luis Obispo County side. Zaniboni said the pipeline was secured immediately, and the oil didn’t reach any waterways.
According to Zaniboni, Bakersfield-based E&B Natural Resources owns the pipeline, and the investigation was turned over to the San Luis County Fire Department and Cal Fire after it was determined that the spill was in SLO County.
The Sun called Cal Fire in SLO, but media requests were referred to Scott Milner, an environmental health specialist with San Luis Obispo County, who did not return multiple phone calls by press time.
It’s the third oil spill in the Santa Barbara County area in three months. It wasn’t as big as the Refugio oil spill, which dumped more than 100,000 gallons of oil into the ocean and onto nearby beaches. It took about three months to clean the spill. Plains All American Pipeline, a Texas-based company, took responsibility for the spill.
The pipeline that leaked in Santa Maria is owned by Phillips 66, which also owns a refinery in Nipomo.
This article appears in Jul 23-30, 2015.