Who should pay to clean up the hazardous facilities that bankrupt oil companies leave behind? It shouldn’t be taxpayers, but that’s what’s happening.
And Santa Barbara County shouldn’t be on the hook to facilitate that cleanup either, but that’s what’s happening.
Venoco filed for bankruptcy in 2017, blaming the shutdown of the Plains All American Pipeline that caused the 2015 oil spill along the Gaviota Coast. The fallout from the spill idled offshore Platform Holly because the pipeline was the only way that oil could make it onshore to Venoco’s processing facility.
The company blamed regulations and county residents for its dire financial straits and then stuck taxpayers with the cleanup bill—outside of the $22 million bond the company paid the state to insure Platform Holly, of course, a bond that doesn’t even foot the bill for a third of the $70 million-plus cost to shut the platform down.
While the State Lands Commission is in charge of that decommissioning, the county was required to spearhead shutting down a Venoco oil pipeline with the help of a $500,000 grant from the State Department of Toxic Substances and Pesticide Control. Venoco may have siphoned the oil out of the pipeline before calling it quits, but the company left it full of water, corrosion inhibitor, and biocide— which is considered to be hazardous to public safety—before peacing out.
Thanks, Venoco!
What a bunch of baloney.
As the Center for Biological Diversity puts it: Oil companies should be on the hook to clean up their own messes. We are allowing them to profit off of us, set up toxic facilities, pollute the environment, and stick us with the cleanup bill after they stop rolling in the dough. Lame! Does that make us stupid? I think so.
Center Ocean Programs Director Miyoko Sakashita told us that the nonprofit would love to see state and federal governments do more to hold oil companies accountable. And I 100 percent agree.
“The companies drilling for and profiting from oil, not the taxpayer, are supposed to pay to clean up their old pipelines and platforms,” she said.
Ain’t that the truth. And yet, that’s not what’s happening. HVI Cat Canyon, formerly known as Greka Oil Company, left a trail of oil spills, terribly maintained equipment, and abandoned oil wells in its wake. And the California Geologic Energy Management Division is left holding the bag to plug and abandon 171 oil wells in Cat Canyon while the company got to file for bankruptcy in 2019. A major bummer.
Companies like that shouldn’t be able to file for bankruptcy and just skate away from their responsibilities. And yet, America just lets it happen.
All you people out there who are so concerned about taxpayers footing the bill for people to get off the streets should be more upset about the millions and millions of dollars the state has to spend to clean up the environment and decommission oil facilities left behind by companies who made billions off of us.
It’s ridiculous to not hold them accountable.
And we’re ridiculous for allowing it to happen.
The Canary feels like ridiculing Big Oil chicanery. Send tips to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 7-17, 2023.
