The California Coastal Commission recently ordered Sable Offshore Corp. to stop unpermitted work on its Gaviota Coast oil pipeline.
Enforcement staff issued a notice of violation saying Sable’s “pipeline upgrade project” requires a coastal development permit for the work installing safety valves and addressing corrosion.
The Coastal Commission learned about the work, which was visible from Highway 101, and ordered the company to stop in the Sept. 27 notice.
Sable crews continued working in the area for at least several days, according to commission staff and local observers, then stopped Friday afternoon.
Sable was expected to submit a proposal by the end of Monday for stabilizing its sites during this pause, and list all the work it has already done, said Lisa Haage, chief of enforcement for the Coastal Commission.
“We don’t want them doing anything out there without some Coastal Act involvement,” Haage said, adding that then they’ll figure out where to go from here. “The Coastal Act has a lot of legal and enforcement remedies, and we don’t know if any of those will be triggered now or not.”
Steve Rusch, Sable’s VP of environmental and regulatory affairs, released a statement Friday afternoon saying the company was working with “all agencies” to make sure work complies with permits and laws.
On Saturday, Rusch sent a follow-up statement saying the company believes the repair and maintenance work on the pipeline is covered by existing permits.
However, the company moved about 30 crew members to pipeline areas outside the Coastal Zone “pending further engagement with CCC staff.”
Sable is restoring the 124-mile pipeline to “as-new” condition, which regulatory agencies require before restarting operations, he said.
“Repair and maintenance activities that are exempt from Coastal Act permitting requirements have been conducted on the pipeline under the pipeline’s existing Coastal Development Permits for the last 35-plus years, and (Pacific Pipeline Company) believes its recent work is within the scope of those historic activities,” Rusch said in a statement. Pacific Pipeline Co. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sable.
There are specific rules for when work is exempt from a coastal development permit, and even legitimate repair work isn’t necessarily exempt under the Coastal Act, said Alex Helperin, assistant chief counsel for the Coastal Commission.
When staff met with Sable last week, after the notice of violation was issued, “we were a little surprised at that point they hadn’t stopped,” he said.
The company stopped construction as of 2 p.m. Friday, according to the Coastal Commission.
“If they start again, that would be a great concern to us, so any information would be welcome,” Haage said.
In a Friday meeting with Sable to get the work stopped, the Coastal Commission laid the groundwork for an executive director cease-and-desist order “should one be needed,” she said.
“All that is to say the Coastal Commission is taking this very seriously,” Smith added.
Pipeline Work
Sable crews were seen working on the pipeline along the Highway 101 corridor of the Gaviota Coast multiple days last week, after the notice of violation.
Local environmental groups had observers checking out the sites from publicly accessible areas and sent photos to the commission.
Brady Bradshaw of the Center for Biological Diversity visited five sites between Baron Ranch and the Gaviota pump station on Friday. He saw excavators moving dirt, trucks on the move, and an open pit where workers were using shovels.
His organization heard about the notice of violation and wanted to check whether work had stopped, he said.
While crews were clearly working on the pipeline on Friday, it was unclear what kind of work they were doing, he said.
“As far as we know, they may or may not be advancing the restart, or they could be conducting some of the limited types of work allowed under the notice of violation,” he said.
The Center for Biological Diversity planned to send photos and videos of the sites to the commission, and also shared some with Noozhawk.
Environmental Defense Center staff also took photos of the work sites last week and sent them to the commission.
“Even talking about restarting this pipeline is hard to believe considering that it already broke and caused one of the worst oil spills that we’ve seen in California,” EDC Executive Director Alex Katz said.
“It’s very likely that it will break again if they restart it since they are not fixing the problem that led to the rupture in the first place,” he said, calling the pipeline “compromised.”
Pipeline Restart and County Lawsuit
Sable operates the Santa Ynez Unit offshore oil and gas platforms, processing facility and transportation pipelines through Santa Barbara County. Production stopped in 2015 after the coastal pipeline burst and caused the Refugio Oil Spill.
The company, which acquired assets from Exxon/Pacific Pipeline Co. and Plains All American, plans to restart oil and gas production later this year.
There are a lot of steps in the process, going through multiple regulatory agencies.
There is strong community opposition whenever pipeline-related projects get public review — such as transferring permits and leases, and installing safety valves.
When the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors failed to take action on the company’s valve installation project last year, the company sued.
In a conditional settlement agreement reached in August, the county said the valves project is out of its jurisdiction since equipment will be entirely underground.
A settlement for original construction of the pipeline (Celeron agreement) preempts local control over the safety valves project, county spokesperson Kelsey Gerckens Buttitta said at the time.
Coastal Commission staff say state and local agencies still have authority over the pipeline and the valve project, even with the settlement.
“Santa Barbara County has declined to enforce the above-noted Coastal Act/LCP violations,” so the Coastal Commission is pursuing enforcement, wrote enforcement analyst Jo Ginsberg in the Notice of Violation.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal is the authority for pipeline safety issues, but other agencies have jurisdiction over construction impacts to environmentally sensitive habitat areas, cultural resources, water quality and public access, the notice said.
Santa Barbara County does not have any permit applications for Sable pipeline work at the moment, Gerckens Buttitta said this week.
In response to the Coastal Commission’s allegations of not enforcing the Coastal Act, the county said the Sable settlement agreement is specific to the safety valves.
“The conditional settlement agreement does not speak to other potential changes to the pipeline and associated equipment,” the county said in a statement Monday. “All proposed changes to the pipeline will be evaluated separately against federal and state law, the Celeron Agreement, and the existing permits.”
Attorneys at the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center disagree with the county’s position that it doesn’t have jurisdiction over the valve project.
On Monday, staff attorney Jeremy Frankel said the EDC “is very encouraged to see the Coastal Commission stepping in to fill the jurisdictional void left by the county.”
