Oil foil: A judge puts a temporary restraining order on Sable’s progress as environmental organizations sue to prevent another disaster

For dozens of Refugio State Beach’s visitors on May 18, stepping into the ocean was a solemn act of remembrance.

Local environmental groups co-hosted a morning paddle out that Sunday—one day shy of the 10th anniversary of the Refugio oil spill.

Three offshore oil rigs connected to the May 19, 2015, disaster were within eyesight of paddlers, who were not aware at the time that one of these platforms recently broke its decade-long dormancy, according to Center for Biological Diversity Senior Counsel Julie Teel Simmonds.

“They didn’t even know that they were out there paddling around, and oil was flowing under the ocean,” said Simmonds, who represents one of the nonprofits that organized the event.

In a May 19 statement, Texas-based oil company Sable Offshore Corporation announced that it restarted production at Platform Harmony via six oil wells on May 15. Based on the company’s reported oil flow rate of about 6,000 barrels per day, Sable had pumped more than 700,000 gallons ahead of May 18’s paddle out without public notice.

“The timing was certainly quite painful,” Simmonds said. “It definitely felt like a blow even if it wasn’t intentional.”

While Sable still has some criteria left to meet before restarting its Las Flores pipeline system (known collectively with the three offshore oil rigs and an onshore processing facility as the Santa Ynez Unit), formal opportunities for public input and noticing requirements are not among them. 

That’s one of the reasons the Center for Biological Diversity partnered with the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation to sue the state fire marshal in mid-April for granting Sable a waiver. As part of the pending lawsuit, the two groups filed a restraining order request in early June with the aim of pausing Sable’s efforts to restart the Las Flores pipeline until court proceedings conclude.

On June 3, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Donna Geck granted the request and ordered both Sable and the fire marshal to halt operations, including tests, repairs, and other prep work, tied to the onshore pipeline’s restart until a follow-up hearing on July 18.

Simmonds said she believes Judge Geck understood the urgency of the situation. Without a safeguard of this kind in place, the onshore pipeline’s restart could “happen any day” based on the state waiver’s prerequisites for final approval of Sable’s restart plan.

“We aren’t actually going to know when that restart plan is signed,” Simmonds said. “Even within a few days, we felt that they could be trying to restart pipeline operations.”

In Sable’s May 19 announcement centered on Platform Harmony, the company stated that it was one hydrotest away from meeting the fire marshal’s final conditions to resurrect the Las Flores pipeline. Although the company didn’t include an estimated restart date, it expects to recommence oil sales from the Santa Ynez Unit by July.

The state fire marshal’s counsel, state Deputy Attorney General Michael Dorsi, didn’t respond to the Sun’s request for comment before press time.

In April, the Center for Biological Diversity wasn’t the only local nonprofit that took legal action against the waiver while citing a lack of public transparency.

The Environmental Defense Center (EDC) also filed a joint lawsuit on April 15 on behalf of a handful of its clients, including the Santa Barbara County Action Network and Santa Barbara Channelkeeper.

In the lawsuit, EDC Chief Counsel Linda Krop wrote that the fire marshal didn’t follow through with “its own previous commitments to state legislators” to hold at least one public meeting before approving Sable’s state waiver application in December 2024.

“In light of the obvious threat to public health and safety posed by these defective pipelines, community organizations sent multiple requests … for increased transparency and public engagement as it considered Sable’s state waiver applications,” Krop stated.  

The Center for Biological Diversity’s initial success in court was “a victory for those of us on the California coast who are concerned about our coastal resources,” EDC staff attorney Jeremy Frankel told the Sun.

Frankel said he doesn’t believe enough people realize how broadly the risk of another potential oil spill from the Las Flores pipeline applies to other areas of Santa Barbara County besides the Gaviota coast.

“We’ve seen what it can do to the beaches here, but it also goes through the [Gaviota] State Park and major groundwater supply sources for the county,” Frankel said. “It goes through major rivers—the Santa Ynez River, Sisquoc River. It goes through a neighborhood in Buellton. … It’s 120 miles long.”

Center for Biological Diversity Senior Counsel Simmonds said that both her group and EDC’s pending lawsuits “outline why we don’t think the state waivers comply with pipeline safety laws” or the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

“For something as significant as restarting pipelines that caused such a significant oil spill that no one will ever forget, … it’s remarkable that no one did any environmental review of the restart,” Simmonds said. “That seems like a pretty reasonable ask, and we think it’s one that’s required by law.”

Sable replied to a request for comment with a statement from Vice President of Environmental and Governmental Affairs Steve Rusch.

“This court decision does not impede Sable’s preparations for restarting the flow of oil critical to lowering California’s gas prices and stabilizing supply,” Rusch said. “[Sable] will seek to protect our rights and enforce the legal process.”

In court documents filed prior to Judge Geck’s decision, Rusch wrote that Sable and the Pacific Pipeline Company would collectively lose “at least $17.5 million in net margin per week, totaling $75 million for just one month” if the temporary restraining order through July 18 was granted.

“The injunctive relief petitioners request will cause immediate and irreparable damage to real parties,” Rusch wrote. “The business disruption will also decrease value for shareholders in [Sable and the Pacific Pipeline Company], which include members of the public.”

The June 3 ruling made national headlines, which Assemblymember Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara) said were helpful during a state Assembly hearing on June 4. That day, Hart’s newly proposed legislation to tighten certain safety restrictions for offshore oil drilling (Assembly Bill 1448) got enough votes to move forward to the state Senate.

“I really made the case to my colleagues that Sable is not acting in good faith,” Hart told the Sun. “Newspaper articles about [Sable’s] behavior … helped me give more impetus to get this bill.”

If adopted, AB 1448 would require the State Lands Commission to consider various environmental and public health factors, such as prior oil spills and impacts to coastal resources, before approving lease arrangements for proposed offshore oil projects.

“This bill would protect the coast by giving new authority to the State Lands Commission to impose additional conditions when a situation like this occurs in the future,” Hart said.

Hart cited the California Coastal Commission’s decision to fine Sable $18 million for violating the Coastal Act in April as an example of the company’s “deeply offensive” behavior.

“[That’s] the largest fine in the Coastal Commission’s history,” Hart said. “It’s just an unprecedented situation to have an out of state oil company to come in and run roughshod over our critical environmental regulations.”

Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.

This article appears in Jun 12-22, 2025.