During the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative process, corporate "environmental" NGO representatives and state officials went out of their way to make sure that Big Oil and other corporate polluters weren't impacted by the creation of alleged "marine protected areas" along the California coast.
State officials and MLPA Initiative advocates claimed that other state and federal laws and administrative actions "protect" the ocean from oil spills and new offshore oil drilling, so there was no need for specific bans or restrictions on oil industry activities in and near "marine protected areas."
In violation of the provisions of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) of 1999, the "marine protected areas" failed to protect the ocean from oil spills, oil drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
Of course, MLPA Initiative advocates neglected to address why Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, was allowed to CHAIR the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast and sat on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast.
However, as we can see from the oil spill disaster off the coast of Santa Barbara, the state and federal agencies responsible for enforcing the laws that are supposed to "protect" the ocean weren't able to prevent a big oil spill like the one now taking place from occurring. To make matters worse, these same agencies allowed oil companies to frack the ocean off California over 200 times over the past 20 years.
Now we find out that company that owns the pipeline involved in Tuesday’s major oil spill in Santa Barbara has had 175 incidents (mostly oil spills) nationwide since 2006, including 11 in California, according to a Center for Biological Diversity analysis of federal documents!
Plains Pipeline (a subsidiary of Plains All-American Pipeline) has also had federal enforcement actions initiated against it 20 times since 2006 for its operations across the country, according to data from the U.S. Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Many of those cases involve corrosion control and maintenance problems on its pipelines, including two cases in 2009 for which the company was fined $115,600.
“This company’s disturbing record highlights oil production’s toxic threat to California’s coast,” said Miyoko Sakashita, the Center’s oceans program director. “Oil pipelines and offshore fracking and drilling endanger our fragile marine ecosystems. Every new oil project increases the risk of fouled beaches and oil-soaked sea life.”
Sakashita said the ruptured oil pipeline near Refugio State Beach — a 24-inch wide, 11-mile long section carrying oil from offshore platforms and an Exxon Mobil processing plant onshore — leaked as much as 105,000 gallons of crude oil, including 21,000 gallons making it into the ocean, fouling about nine miles of coastal waters and beaches.
According to Sakashita, "The broken pipeline was 28 years old and operated by a company that has been repeatedly warned by government regulators to improve its procedures and control corrosion for its pipelines. Plains Pipeline had five incidents in California in 2014 alone, including the one that dumped oil into a Los Angeles neighborhood a year ago."
"Hundreds of miles of oil pipelines run through California’s coastal areas, posing a serious threat of spills. A review released by the Center for Biological Diversity of federal data over the past 30 years shows that such oil spills from pipelines are a common and costly byproduct of oil production that has been rapidly increasing in the United States, including offshore," she noted.
An analysis of federal pipeline data commissioned last year by the Center showed there have been nearly 8,000 serious pipeline breaks nationwide since 1986, causing more than 2,300 injuries and nearly $7 billion in property damage. The vast majority of those incidents have involved oil pipelines, spilling more than 2 million barrels into waterways and on the ground. More than 35 percent of these incidents have been caused by corrosion or other spontaneous structural failures.
"The Santa Barbara Channel is rich in biodiversity, including whales, dolphins and more than 500 species of fish. Endangered blue whales often feed in the channel, and it is in the migration path for four other whales listed under the Endangered Species Act. Witnesses spotted sea lions and migrating whales in the coastal waters as the spill was taking place Tuesday," said Sakashita.
The Santa Barbara County coastline was the site of an oil platform explosion in 1969 that spilled up to 100,000 barrels of oil.
“If we’re learned anything over the past 50 years, it’s that coastal oil production remains inherently dangerous to wildlife, local communities and health of the planet,” Sakashita said. “To protect our coast, we need to stop offshore drilling and fracking and quickly transition to cleaner energy sources.”
She said offshore fracking has been used hundreds of times in recent years off California’s coast, and oil companies are also making increasing use of techniques like acidizing to coax oil from beneath the ocean.
Oil spills like the latest one off Santa Barbara are inevitable as long as Big Oil is able to exert as much power and influence as it does now in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. The oil industry is the largest and most powerful corporate lobby in California, with the Western States Petroleum Association alone spending $8.9 million on lobbying in 2014, nearly double what it spent the previous year.
To read my investigative piece on oil industry money and power in California in the East Bay Express, go to: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/...