Greka spills 200 barrels of crude oil and polluted water

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Two hundred barrels of crude oil and polluted water spewed from a broken underground pipe at a Greka Energy facility yesterday, according to statements from the oil company and the Santa Barbara County Fire Department.
The spill occurred at the Bell lease on the 6000 block of Palmer Road, which was closed on Dec. 7 by fire officials after nearly 60,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into a nearby seasonal creek.


While the ratio of crude oil to produced water and the exact amount of the spill has not yet been determined, Fire Capt. Eli Iskow said yesterday’s spill traveled three-quarters of a mile down the same creek that was polluted by the Dec. 7 spill. He said the earlier spill traveled a half-mile down the creek.
Robert Emmers, a spokesman for Greka, said the company has known about the faulty pipe and wanted to fix it, but due to a stop work order issued in December by the Fire Department, they could not.
“Because of the stop work order they weren’t allowed to go in and replace that pipe,” Emmers told the Daily Sound yesterday.
Iskow called that claim “absurd,” noting that the point of a stop work order is to make improvements to the facility before it can be reopened. The idea of such an order, he said, is to prevent future spills.
“It is even more absurd than some of the other things we’ve been hearing from Greka,” Iskow said.
He said replacing the 12-inch pipe was one of more than a dozen required improvements identified by the Fire Department in December that Greka would have to undertake before the facility could be reopened.
“That pipe in particular was itemized by the inspectors more than a month ago,” Iskow said. “Stop work doesn’t mean stop repairing the problems it means stop pumping oil into the facility.”
In order to fix the pipe, Emmers said Greka would have had to drain a containment pond, which was not possible under the stop work order.
But Iskow said the Fire Department, Environmental Protection Agency and California Department of Fish and Game each gave Greka specific instructions on how to drain the pond, and it did not include using the pipe.
He said Greka was allowed to drain their oil holding tanks after the Dec. 7 spill in order to make room for the produced water and rain water in the containment ponds. He said the company was then supposed to vacuum pump the water from the ponds, in order to facilitate the replacement of the pipe.
Iskow said the Fire Department was notified of the spill just before 9 a.m. yesterday. He said an off-site Greka employee reported the incident and it is not known how long the pipe had been leaking.
Yesterday’s spill is the latest in a recent wave of incidents at Greka facilities that have prompted staunch criticism from local elected officials, some of whom have suggested all of the spill-plagued company’s facilities be shut down until they can make vast infrastructure improvements. Others, such as Assemblyman Pedro Nava and First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal have suggested closing the company down for good.
A county report released in early January showed Greka has spilled nearly 500,000 gallons of crude oil onto local ground since 2003, and over that same time period has been responsible for more than 80 percent of all gas and oil releases in the county.
Greka officials have said evidence exists that suggests the company has been the target of sabotage.
In his first official announcement, the company’s new president, Andrew deVegvar, said last Friday that Greka will give $25,000 to any person who provides information leading to the saboteur’s arrest.