Greka announces new president, $25,000 cash reward

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

After a spate of crude oil spills at Greka Energy facilities over the past two months that have resulted in nearly 200,000 gallons of spillage, the company announced yesterday it has appointed Andrew deVegvar as its president.
The embattled energy company also announced it is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a person or group they suspect of sabotaging its facilities in the North County.


The announcements came just hours after at least three separate spills occurred Thursday night at its UCAL energy lease on Dominion Road near Santa Maria.
The spills and the widespread criticism that has erupted from elected officials and the public as a result were the focus of deVegvar’s first official words as president.
“At Greka we take seriously our responsibility to operate safe and secure facilities,” deVegvar said in a prepared statement. “We understand that any event which impacts our facilities, whether caused by sabotage or something else, can have an effect on the environment, our business and our more than 200 employees and their families.”
The statement says deVegvar has 15 years of “diversified experience with the California energy industry and related financing.”
On Jan. 15, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to set a series of ordinances in motion that will have the cumulative impact of reining in Greka and any other energy company that spill on a regular basis.
At that meeting, an attorney for Greka said the company hired Tom Parker, a former FBI agent, to investigate a spill on Jan. 5 at a facility on Zaca Station Road near Los Olivos that spewed 84,000 gallons of crude oil into a creek, and a Dec. 7 spill that resulted in more than 60,000 gallons of spillage.
The result of the investigation was widespread sabotage, the attorney said.
According to yesterday’s statement, Parker found that someone tampered with a primary water injection pump, which caused the Dec. 7 spill. The statement also says Parker determined the Jan. 5 spill was caused by the failure of a motor on an injection pump and was worsened by a cut in an abandoned and sealed drain pipe, which allowed the spill to escape the containment area.
The statement also says a number of other “highly suspicious” circumstances surrounding the spills were also found by Parker and were “seemingly timed to coincide with Assemblyman Pedro Nava’s Dec. 18, 2007 announcement that he was convening a hearing to discuss Greka and the hearing itself on Jan. 4, 2008.”
“Concurrently, we want to do everything we can to make sure the person or persons responsible for the damage to our facilities and the ensuing oil spills are apprehended before thy attack Greka again or the facilities of another operator,” deVegvar said.
Until that happens, the pressure on Greka to get its facilities up to par is mounting.
After Thursday’s spattering of spills, First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal said he planned to ask county legal counsel to look into the possibility of shutting down Greka’s entire local operation until something can be done.
“This is unconscionable and ridiculous,” Carbajal said on Thursday night after hearing about the most recent spills. “I am frustrated that we can’t shut down the entire operation like I would like to shut them down.”