‘Reality’ Intrudes into Safety Valves Proposal for Refugio Pipeline – SB Independent

Ana Citrin, representing the Gaviota Coast Conservancy, made the point that although the application was for safety valves, a realistic picture of the project’s impacts was a foreseeable restart of the pipeline. “Frankly, there’s no purpose to the valve project if not to use the pipeline,” she said.

The company applying to install the valves, Pacific Pipeline Company, was represented by Michael Cash, of Liskow & Lewis of Houston. He explained that Pacific had bought the pipeline from Plains and was an affiliate of ExxonMobil. Sable would not own it until the deal was done, he said. Cash demonstrated how the various valve systems worked, arguing that adding more automated valves avoided human error. In fact, AB 864 — sponsored by Das Williams as an assemblymember in 2015 — required replacement pipelines near sensitive areas along the coast to use the best available technology, such as automatic shutoff systems. Pacific Pipeline had faced a deadline of April 23, 2023 for the installation, which was recently extended to April 2024.

Cash also refuted the “Swiss cheese” description of the nearly 40-year-old pipeline. He said it had been filled with nitrogen under pressure since the spill — Cash could not bring himself to say “spill,” calling it the “thing like what happened in 2015” — and the pressure had stayed constant since then.

Dawn Sestito of O’Melveny & Myers followed up and argued the appellants couldn’t get to CEQA because the construction area for the 16 valves totaled less than eight miles, which is one of the exemptions for reopening CEQA review.

During the rebuttals, the best lines came from Cappello — “Swiss cheese in the ground for almost 40 years would really stink” — and Cash — “Pacific Pipeline Company is the owner; we’re taxed as the owner, we’re sued as the owner.”

Two of the five planning commissioners decided to look at the application “with horse blinders on,” as Vincent Martinez said, and thought the project should go forward as simply the addition of safety valves. But the other three took the longer view, as well as noting the valve installation was the county’s last chance at environmental review for the pipeline.

“What I have consistently heard for several years — until the March 1 hearing — is this pipeline is going to be replaced,” said Commission Chair John Parke, alluding to comments during the first half of the appeal hearing. Parke, who coughed his way through the hearing over a video feed, added that he never got a straight answer from the applicant’s representatives, during meetings and during the hearing, until he met James Flores, whose company, Sable Offshore, bought ExxonMobil’s offshore platforms “along with processing facilities for oil and gas, and a pipeline,” according to a crowdsourced investment website called SeekingAlpha.com.

“Mr. Flores said he would restart the pipeline if he can,” said Parke, “and Exxon has some insight into Sable since they own half of it.” He learned from the Energy Division staff that if the project were approved, the pipeline could restart without environmental review. “That concerns me enormously,” Parke said.

“You gotta think about what are the consequences,” said Parke, “what happens with a restart.” He said he’d seen a California Air Resources Board chart showing that the cogeneration plant at Las Flores Canyon — the onshore facility to receive crude from Exxon’s three offshore platforms that would feed the pipeline — created more than 40 percent of the area’s greenhouse gases in burning gas that created steam to run electricity generators that power the offshore platforms. “When they turn the switch on, it will vastly increase GHG emissions,” Parke said. “I cannot approve the project.”