Board requests clarity on Greka violations

 

The board of supervisors questioned the guidelines used to cite 1,181 deficiencies at 18 Greka Oil Company facilities in the county following a string of oil spills since November.

“This does not bode well with the public” was the wording Supervisor Salud Cabrajal used while questioning the number of violations still unresolved against Greka at last week’s Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting.

The board chairman said, “I can’t help but see this glaring amount” of past due notices of violation. The violations carry a penalty of $100 a day.

 

The board also questioned whether the high number of violations meant that reasonable time has not been allowed to correct them. In a letter to the board, Greka bulleted several concerns, including errors in claims exist in county staff reports, which it states could have been avoided if county staff had agreed to the company’s request to review the reports in advance.

Greka also claims that a board staff report ignores the benign nature of the outstanding deficiencies are an immediate danger to health and safety and that it has been inspected and re-inspected while “notably there are several operations that have yet to be inspected even once.”

 

The board directed staff to return in approximately 60 days after further consultation with all interested community stakeholders (including, but not limited to, the Environmental Defense Center) concerning issues raised by board members, such as immediate and potential cost recovery for first-time violators and clear definitions of the terms “facility” and “operator” with regard to fines imposed.

The motion carried with supervisors Carbajal, Janet Wolf, Joni Gray and Joseph Centeno voting “aye.” Third District Supervisor Brooks Firestone, who owns property that is leased to Greka, abstained.

As of Jan. 18, Greka was reported as having experienced 41 spills, 18 inspections, 1,181 deficiencies, and five shutdowns (three facilities remain shutdown) with 11 facilities remaining in active operation.

The report states that two Richards Oil facilities are currently in active operation, PXP has one facility in active operation and one idle, and four Breitburn facilities are in active operation.

 

A video presentation to the board showed that Breitburn had three reported spills, four inspections and 83 deficiencies with no requirement for shutdown; Shell had one reported spill, no inspections and deficiencies were “not applicable;” Richards had one reported spill, two inspections and 49 deficiencies; Santa Maria Pacific had one reported spill, two inspections and deficiencies were “not applicable;” and PXP had one reported spill, two inspections and zero deficiencies. Since Jan. 15, there have been 48 spills, 41 of which occurred at Greka Energy, three at Breitburn and one each at Santa Maria Pacific, Shell, Richards Oil and PXP, for a total of 14,140 gallons.

 

On April 30, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a press release stating that it had completed the cleanup begun by Greka’s contractor and restored the creek at the Bell Lease site in Santa Maria on Palmer Road with two inches of backfill and erosion control materials in the creek bed, and removed approximately 3,276 cubic yards of oil-impacted solids from western Upper Bell Pond (the source of the January spill) for off-site disposal at a permitted hazardous waste disposal facility.

“Additional work is required to address subsurface contamination” from Bell Pond that is seeping to the surface, the press release states. The EPA will remove the concrete from the pond and excavate the contaminated soil to a depth not to exceed five feet below ground. Greka will conduct an underground pipe survey to locate any unknown pipes and remove all pipe leading to the pond.

 

The five recommendations concerning potential new ordinances include amending the fire code to address multiple responses, to charge no fee for the initial response and charge a fee of $712 for each subsequent response to a petroleum facility in a calendar year, and if time exceeds two hours, to impose a surcharge on the petroleum facility; to finalize rules for offshore facilities to ensure that for certain oil and gas and other energy facilities, demolition and removal of facilities and restoration of sites occur in a timely manner following permanent cessation of operations; to develop a centralized data base to compile a violation history to consolidate data from various agencies, including the number of permits, the number of inspections, the number of notices of violations, releases, responses and the dollar amount of penalties; draft ordinance language to update to the fire code; and finally, consolidate the on-site inspection program to be titled the “Petroleum Unit,” which will report to the board at 60-day intervals until the situation is stabilized. The next report is scheduled for July 15.