The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission is scheduled to hold hearings on Sept. 29 and Oct. 1 for ExxonMobil’s proposal to restart oil production at its Santa Ynez Unit, which includes plans to truck oil to Santa Maria and Kern County receiving sites by way of Highways 101 and 166.
ExxonMobil’s Santa Ynez Unit and its three offshore platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel have been out of operation since 2015, when the Plains All American Pipeline ruptured and leaked more than 123,228 gallons of oil near Refugio State Beach.
The project proposes to transport oil by truck from ExxonMobil’s Las Flores Canyon processing facility on the Gaviota coast. The tankers would travel on Highway 101 to the Phillips 66 Santa Maria Pump Station and on Highway 166 to the Plains Pentland Terminal near Maricopa in Kern County. Previously, the oil flowed through the Plains pipeline.
Under the plan, as many as 70 trucks a day would transport oil seven days a week for up to seven years or until a new pipeline becomes available, unless the county extends the project.
In a 2020 staff report, the Planning Commission recommended a modified interim trucking plan that would allow up to 78 trucks to leave the Las Flores facility per day but would eliminate the Plains Pentland Terminal as a receiving site. Access to that terminal would only be allowed for limited use if the Santa Maria pump station was down for an extended period, defined as at least 10 consecutive days.
Another condition of the modified trucking plan was to eliminate trucking during heavy rains.
The Planning Commission originally opposed trucking to the Kern County terminal due to the hazards of travel on Highway 166 and the risk of oil spills.
Although the Buellton and Santa Maria city councils have passed resolutions in favor of the interim trucking plan, the Goleta, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo city councils passed resolutions opposing it.
Many environmental organizations also have expressed opposition.
“The Santa Barbara (County) Planning Commission must reject the staff recommendation to allow ExxonMobil to truck crude oil along dangerous Route 166,” Linda Krop, chief counsel of the Environmental Defense Center, said in a news release.
“Just last year, an oil tanker truck crashed on Route 166, spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the Cuyama River. More accidents and spills that threaten our public safety, water quality and wildlife are unavoidable.”
Since the original staff report was released, Phillips 66 announced that it would be shutting down its Santa Maria facility in 2023.
On Thursday, the Planning Commission released a final, updated staff report that included a modified interim trucking plan, which is the same as its original recommendation, with one exception: ExxonMobil would be permitted to truck oil to the Plains Pentland Terminal, using Highway 166, once the Santa Maria facility closes permanently in 2023.
This would allow ExxonMobil to send up to 78 trucks to Kern County per day, with an annual limit of 24,820 trucks, and each truck carrying approximately 6,720 gallons of oil.
In the revised final Supplemental Environmental Impact Report for the proposal, one “Class I significant and unavoidable” impact was identified relating to accidental crude oil spills from truck crashes and two “Class II potentially significant but mitigable” impacts were identified regarding air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.
The impact report also identified two “significant but mitigable” impacts regarding traffic safety.
Several organizations, environmental groups, and individuals have formed a coalition opposing the trucking plan, including the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Defense Center, the UC Santa Barbara Environmental Affairs Board, the Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter, and many more.
“As Chumash people we continue to be concerned about the amount and methods of oil and gas extractions in our homelands and homewaters,” Mariza Sullivan, tribal chairwoman of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, said in a statement.
“The proposed trucking of oil, while simultaneously moving forward with an entire oil pipeline replacement project, is unthinkable. Not only will it wind its destructive path through our ancestral lands, it will add to the long history of the systemic erasure of the Chumash people.”
In a 2019 poll conducted by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, North Carolina, about 72% of the 890 Santa Barbara County voters who responded said they were somewhat concerned or very concerned about “the safety of our local highways if up to 70 oil tanker-trucks are allowed on our roads each day.”
ExxonMobil’s website says that “the Santa Ynez Unit has a long history of safe, incident-free operations” and that “the project’s trucks will account for less than 1% of existing traffic on the planned routes, with only approximately four to six trucks on the road at any given time.”
The Planning Commission’s hearings on the proposed plan will start during its Sept. 29 meeting, which begins at 9 a.m. and will be streamed live on the county’s website.
— Noozhawk staff writer Serena Guentz can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
"oil" - Google News
September 12, 2021 at 11:50AM
https://ift.tt/3liCD4h
ExxonMobil Oil Trucking Proposal Inches Toward Crucial Planning Commission Hearing - Noozhawk
"oil" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2PqPpxF
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "ExxonMobil Oil Trucking Proposal Inches Toward Crucial Planning Commission Hearing - Noozhawk"
Post a Comment