Supes to review history of Greka

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

The amount of oil spilled onto Santa Barbara County soil by Greka Energy in the past five years came into focus yesterday, when a report compiled by various county agencies revealed that number is nearly 8,000 barrels, or 336,000 gallons.
The report comes on the heels of a string of incidents at North County Greka facilities in the past three months that culminated with a spill last Saturday. Preliminary estimates released Monday by the County Hazardous Materials Division put the latest spill at 2,000 barrels, or 84,000 gallons of crude oil and produced water.


At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting in Santa Maria, the report is scheduled to be the topic of much discussion. On one side are elected officials who have vowed to tighten the reigns on the spill-plagued energy company and on the other, Greka representatives who insist they’ve done nothing wrong.
“I think our residents and constituents countywide are looking to us on the Board of Supervisors to take swift, aggressive action to ensure [the spills] stop,” said First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal.
Carbajal said the numbers in the report, which indicate Greka far surpasses any other energy company operating within the county when it comes to spills – Sierra Resources has the second highest mark with 400 barrels spilled – speak for themselves.
Stacked up against 11 other energy companies operating locally, Greka accounts for 77.5 percent of oilfield releases, the report shows.
Mike Stoker, a spokesman for Greka and former fifth and second district county supervisor, said he believes many of the numbers in the report are misleading and could be incorrect.
“There’s, I think, major inaccuracies in the report that we will hopefully bring to the board’s attention on Tuesday,” Stoker said, adding that he expects Greka to receive at least 45-minutes of the board’s time to tell its side of the story.
The report includes four recommendations for the board to consider. They include developing a response ordinance, the intent of which would be to reimburse the county for the costs associated with responding to incidents at “poorly maintained onshore petroleum facilities operated by the same petroleum operator.”
The report says the County Fire Department has responded to incidents at Greka Energy facilities 400 times since 1999, at a cost of $450 per hour.
The second staff recommendation is for the board to develop a high-risk offender ordinance, while the third is to develop a centralized database to compile violation history. The fourth is to increase inspection and permitting fees for facilities that require extraordinary time for inspection.
Though Carbajal said he believes the recommendations seem sound, but he’d like to see them go further.
“I think the report identifies a number of strategies that could help us address this situation,” Carbajal said. “However, I’m not sure that the recommendations were aggressive enough.”
The report will be presented to the board at their weekly meeting this Tuesday at the Betteravia Government Center in Santa Maria. The entire report is available online at www.countyofsb.org.