SB County holds hearings on ExxonMobil’s offshore oil trucking plan
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission is holding online public hearings today and Friday on ExxonMobil’s proposal to transport oil by tanker trucks along California highways so it can restart three drilling platforms off the Santa Barbara coast.
The plan calls for up to 24,800 oil-filled truck trips per year on coastal Highway 101 and Route 166, 24 hours a day, to refineries for up to seven years or whenever a new coastal oil pipeline is completed, whichever is shorter.
ExxonMobil’s three offshore platforms near Santa Barbara were shut down in 2015 after the Plains All American Pipeline ruptured and spilled thousands of gallons of oil along the California coast.
ExxonMobil’s oil trucking plan is strongly opposed by a coalition of 35 community and conservation organizations, who recently sent a letter urging the commission to reject the project. They cited the project’s threat of more offshore oil spills, fueling climate change, and endangering motorists and communities with dangerous oil tanker truck crashes.
“Now is not the time to turn the clock back and return to our old ways of relying on fossil fuels to meet our energy needs,” the letter concludes. “The County of Santa Barbara is moving towards a clean energy future by adopting renewable energy targets and joining the Central Coast Community Energy program. Allowing ExxonMobil to resume oil production off our coast will lead to decades of fossil fuel production that we cannot afford.”
California suffers hundreds of oil truck incidents a year and many result in oil spills.
There were 258 trucking accidents along the route from 2015 to 2021, California Highway Patrol data shows, resulting in 10 deaths and 110 injuries. A tanker truck crashed off Highway 166 in March 2020, spilling more than 4,500 gallons of oil into the Cuyama River above Twitchell Reservoir.
A majority of Santa Barbara County voters say they oppose proposals to restart ExxonMobil’s offshore drilling platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, according to a November 2019 poll.
Nearly 3 out of 4 respondents said they were concerned “about the safety of our local highways if up to 70 oil tanker trucks are allowed on our roads each day.”
The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission is expected to make its final decision during Friday's online public hearing.
It'll be live-streamed at 9 a.m. on Santa Barbara City TV.
