The city of Buellton is in a unique situation relative to Sable Offshore Corporation’s crude oil pipeline, yet city residents’ and city officials’ concerns are being ignored.
To the Buellton City Council’s credit, the mayor recently sent a letter to the county Board of Supervisors explaining Buellton’s perspective and the need to ensure protection of residents and property before the pipeline restarts. The mayor’s letter focused on safety issues and not on oil production issues.
Regardless of whether the pipeline restarts without the requested safety measures, the Buellton City Council stood up for the unique safety concerns of its residents, even when so many county, state, and federal agencies, and the oil companies, don’t seem to care.
Unique risks
Buellton is the only town through which the crude oil pipeline runs for its entire 122-mile length, crossing Buellton residential neighborhoods and the city’s main park. Thus, a potential catastrophic pipeline rupture in Buellton poses risks to people, homes, property, roads, and parks. It’s a situation that doesn’t exist elsewhere in Santa Barbara County, but agencies seem to be ignorant of Buellton’s unique risks.
The pipeline’s original permits from 1988 didn’t address the unique situation of the pipeline running under residential areas in Buellton because those housing areas didn’t exist when the pipeline was constructed in the late 1980s. The city of Buellton didn’t even exist at that time; the city was incorporated in 1992.
The original permits from 1988 logically focused only on risks to largely vacant land and of course to sensitive habitats, but not to residential developments. Now the Buellton landscape above the pipeline is dramatically changed from what it was 37 years ago. The county should condition the pipeline’s permits to reflect this changed landscape, by addressing the capabilities of Sable (or any other owner) to manage the pipeline safely and to handle any problems that might occur in an urban residential environment.
Buellton’s need and request
Sable can best address Buellton residents’ safety by realigning the pipeline outside city limits as Exxon had proposed in 2017. After the pipeline ruptured on the Gaviota coast in 2015, Exxon incurred huge costs and realized the pipeline was a liability, especially in Buellton. Exxon knew a realignment around Buellton would reduce the company’s financial liability.
The pipeline in Buellton would have been filled in and left in place; no need to dig it up. A draft Environmental Impact Report was prepared, which fully describes the project. Realignment might have been completed by now if Sable hadn’t withdrawn the project application from the county Planning Department.
Ignorance of Buellton
If the pipeline remains in place in Buellton, Sable’s plans should be revised: to acknowledge the city’s existence, to describe how Sable will prevent or detect leaks and breaks, and to explain how Sable would address worst-case scenarios of pipeline rupture in Buellton. Currently, both Sable’s transition plan and its contingency plan describe the pipeline’s route without mentioning that it goes through Buellton’s neighborhoods and principal park. Sable’s transition plan, in Section 15.2, includes a “description of pipeline corridor” that provides detail on the pipeline’s route, naming specific creeks, canyons, roadways, and ranches, and then stating: “The pipeline crosses the Santa Ynez River west and south of Buellton and continues north across the Purisima and Solomon Hills.”
Incredibly, this description neglects to say the pipeline goes through Buellton and its residential neighborhoods, thus implying the pipeline bypasses the city. Are Sable’s managers really so ignorant about Buellton?
When Sable’s director of government affairs attended a recent Buellton City Council meeting on Feb. 27, he said he’d been coming to the Santa Ynez Valley for 50 years but admitted, “I had no idea Buellton was a city.” (His remarks can be seen at 27:53 minutes into Buellton CityTV’s online archived video of the meeting.)
In Santa Barbara County, there are only two local governments directly affected by the pipeline: the county and Buellton. Sable’s government affairs director should have known that Buellton has a city government, but ignorance about Buellton seems widespread at Sable.
Unique costs
The pipeline’s location in Buellton should raise red flags regarding Sable’s financial capabilities. Sable may not be financially able to handle costs from a major pipeline rupture in Buellton, where costs would likely be higher than in a more rural landscape.
Sable doesn’t have deep pockets as Exxon does. Sable’s only assets are the oil production and pipeline facilities, which it acquired in Santa Barbara County. In fact, Sable was able to purchase those facilities only by borrowing over 95 percent of the money from Exxon itself (“Enviro groups join Exxon lawsuit as company sells offshore unit,” Nov. 9, 2022).
If there is a major pipeline rupture in Buellton, Sable probably doesn’t have the financial resources to cover the costs of impacts to people, property, and the environment, while also paying back the loan from Exxon, especially if the pipeline is again shut down.
Unless Sable realigns the pipeline outside Buellton, the company’s ignorance of Buellton doesn’t bode well if breakage occurs within the city limits.
Len Fleckenstein writes from Buellton. Send a response for publication to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 6, 2025.
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