Last year, on the first day of spring, an oil tank truck crashed on Highway 166 east of Santa Maria, spilling 6,700 gallons of crude oil and fuel into the Cuyama River. The driver was speeding and is finally being prosecuted by the District Attorney.
Exxon recently revived plans to send 70 such trucks daily, on the 101, from their Gaviota facility to the Nipomo refinery. If that doesn’t work out, they will then send the trucks barreling down the 166 to their Kern County pipeline. Those 70 trucks then return to pick up the next day’s load.
Will our county and the state sanction this major pollution process and oil spills waiting to happen? For 30 years this oil was piped north in substandard and neglected pipelines until the Refugio Beach oil spill shut down the pipeline.