Three student organizations launched a campaign, Stop Sable Pipeline @ UC Santa Barbara, on Jan. 28 to stop Houston-based upstream oil company Sable Offshore from restarting the Las Flores Pipeline System. In 2015, one of the pipelines in the system ruptured near Refugio Beach, spilling 450,000 gallons of oil — one of the largest in California history since the 1969 spill in the Santa Barbara Channel.
According to an Environmental Impact Report draft by Santa Barbara County, restarting the pipeline would likely result in an oil spill every two years Wesley Haver / Daily Nexus
Running 122 miles from the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County (SBC) to the Pentland Delivery Point in Kern County, the pipeline system was built in 1987. Plains All American Pipeline owned the pipeline when it ruptured near Refugio Beach in May 2015 due to corrosion. It was the second major oil spill in Santa Barbara since a 1969 spill that spurred the first Earth Day and consequently the modern environmentalist movement.
Several of President Donald Trump’s executive orders on Jan. 20 aim to increase oil and gas development.
The organizations, California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG), Associated Students Environmental Affairs Board (EAB) and Environmental Law Club at UCSB launched the campaign through their Instagram @ucsbstopsable.
The campaign will consist of phone banking, letter writing, attending public hearings, tabling on campus and hosting events to raise awareness. The next event will be an organizing meeting on Feb. 6 that includes a screening of “Broke: The Santa Barbara Oil Pipeline Spill of 2015,” a film by Gail Osherenko.
Sable was founded in 2020 as an independent oil and gas company. According to the company’s website, it was founded for the purpose of “evaluating the opportunity to acquire” the Santa Ynez Unit — the offshore platforms and the onshore processing plants that receive oil from Las Flores.
Requirements to restart the pipeline include the transfer of county permits which are being appealed, a waiver from the California State Fire Marshal which was recently granted, permits for repair work on the pipeline’s valves from the California Coastal Commission and a decommissioning bond posted to the California Geologic Energy Management Division.
The transfer permits appealed by the Environmental Defense Center (EDC) and the Center for Biological Diversity will be reconsidered at the end of February. The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has until Feb. 15 to object or approve the waiver and the decommissioning bond is still being estimated.
Second-year political science major and CALPIRG campaign coordinator Johnny Rodrigues-McConville highlighted Santa Barbara’s history with the environmental movement as the reason why many locals oppose restarting the pipeline. Local groups such as the Sierra Club, EDC and Center for Biological Diversity have publicly expressed opposition to the pipeline.
“Most people who hear about this campaign are hugely opposed to it, especially people that live here in Santa Barbara. This was the birth of the environmental movement,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is create a lot of visibility for this campaign in order for people to know about it and be passionate about it.”
Rodrigues-McConville said that as an organization for the public’s interest, CALPIRG is “generally pro-environmental” and is therefore involved with the campaign to advocate for local interests.
“Having another oil spill, which is highly likely if they’re able to restart the pipeline, would just be devastating for the ecosystems on our coast and in our coastal environment here,” he said. “Sable is not local to Santa Barbara. And local Santa Barbarans, who we support, who support us, don’t want this to happen.”
According to an Environmental Impact Report draft by SBC, restarting the pipeline would likely result in an oil spill every two years due to ruptures, along with a major rupture every six years due to corrosion on the pipeline.
When asked for a comment, Sable spokesperson Alice Walton referred the Nexus to a statement previously given on Jan. 21.
“Restart of the Santa Ynez Unit is authorized and ultimately controlled by the process outlined in the federal consent decree. Sable continues to work closely with state regulatory agencies to follow the framework laid out by the consent decree,” Vice President of Environmental & Governmental Affairs Steve Rusch said in the email statement.
The consent decree dictates that several processes and requirements must be met before the pipeline is once again operational, including a state waiver, integrity management, valves, risk analysis and leak detection.
According to the Santa Barbara Independent, Walton stated that the company’s pipeline safety proposal contains “state-of-the-art internal and external inspection” programs that will be deployed 10 times more frequently than currently required to address “potential anomalies.” Anomalies refer to areas where corrosion is more likely to occur.
“The truth of it is that for the majority of what they’re doing, they’re using the same corroded pipeline that was responsible for the 2015 oil spill,” Matthew Campa, a UCSB alum and advisor for the Environmental Law Club, said. “This is a company that was started just for the purpose of drilling here. They don’t have any financial history. They don’t have a proven track record of what they’re doing.”
A public hearing will take place on Feb. 25 at the Santa Barbara County Administration Building regarding county permits for the pipeline. The campaign will attend to give public comments in opposition to the pipeline.
“This community has fought this and won before, and has such a direct history with the exploitation and the use of the oil companies, and them just cutting down and running when an oil spill or catastrophe happens,” Campa said. “Ultimately, it’s the state and it’s all it’s the local governments and the people that are the ones that have to do the hard work to make it right again.”
EAB did not respond to requests for comment.
The Nexus will continue to report on this topic as more information becomes available.
A version of this article appeared on p.3 of the Feb. 6, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
