Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department approved ExxonMobil’s (Exxon) emergency permit application Feb. 1, granting the company permission to truck 425,000 barrels of oil from its Las Flores Canyon storage facility to refineries in Santa Maria and Kern County.
Exxon filed the application on Jan. 4, asking to send up to 30 trucks per day on northbound Highway 101. The plan is to remove the oil from its current storage facility, which the company claims is too unstable for long-term use and would cause harm in the event of a natural disaster.
Exxon would normally move the crude via Plains All American Pipeline Line 901, but the line is currently closed for repairs following last year’s oil spill at Refugio State Beach.
The application sparked pushback from the Center for Biological Diversity, which campaigned for the county to deny Exxon’s permit application.
Kristen Monsell, staff attorney for the center, said trucking the oil would be more hazardous than leaving it in a storage facility.
“We think that Exxon’s proposal is actually more dangerous than the current situation, and is more likely to lead to an emergency situation given how inherently dangerous trucking oil is,” Monsell said.
The Congressional Research Service and oilprice.com say trucking oil is the riskiest option when considering oil spillage, human death, and property destruction. Still, Exxon argued in its permit application that the dangers of leaving crude in a storage facility outweighed those of trucking it.
The law defines “emergency” in the case of an emergency permit as “a sudden unexpected occurrence demanding immediate action to prevent or mitigate loss or damage to life, health, property, or essential public services.”
Exxon wrote in its application that its current situation fits that definition because “the lack of a pipeline to quickly empty the LFC crude storage tanks during a natural disaster or unforeseen circumstance could potentially result” in emergency-standard loss or damage.
Planning and Development Assistant Director for Santa Barbara County Dianne Black agreed, granting the company’s emergency permit.
County Energy Specialist Errin Briggs said Exxon will need three weeks to install minor truck loading improvements at Las Flores Canyon. There’s no exact start date for the trucking, Briggs said, but it should begin soon after the improvements are made.
Briggs said the company should take three to six months to de-inventory the crude in storage, and Plains Pipeline Line 901 will be shut down for at least six months.
“There’s a lot that needs to happen before the pipeline resumes operation,” Briggs said. “We do know that it’s going to be a prolonged period of time.”
Exxon last applied for an emergency trucking permit in June, which Black denied within days.
Briggs said the situations are vastly different because the June permit application was for ongoing production, whereas the current permit is only for three to six months.
This article appears in Feb 4-11, 2016.