To opponents of restarting the Santa Ynez Unit under Sable Offshore Corp:
Forty years ago, many of us — including Environmental Defense Center attorney Linda Krop and myself, then a member of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors — fought to end the daily parade of two to three oil tankers carrying up to 300,000 barrels from Exxon’s Offshore Storage and Treatment Facility (OSTF) 3.1 miles offshore. We knew the only way to stop the tankering was to eliminate the OSTF and bring all processing onshore, under state and county oversight.
After years of hard-fought negotiations — with the full support of the environmental community — Exxon agreed. The platforms were electrified, the OSTF was decommissioned, and oil began flowing by pipeline to the facility in Las Flores Canyon. Tankering in the Santa Barbara Channel effectively ended.