A company focused on restarting some shuttered oil platforms off the Santa Barbara County coastline has suffered a setback.
Sable Offshore has sought to reopen what was the Plains All-American Pipeline which ruptured at Refugio State Beach in 2015. The rupture caused an estimated 140,000 gallon crude oil spill which polluted miles of the county’s coastline.
The pipeline has been closed since the accident, and that forced the shutdown of four offshore oil platforms. One of them, Platform Holly, was closed permanently. Sable wants to reopen the other three.
The State Fire Marshal’s Office regulates pipeline safety. This week, it rejected Sable’s risk analysis for the proposed restart of the pipeline. State officials say the plan increases the threshold for what’s considered a worst case disaster. They say the plan they already approved in 2021 has a higher safety standards, and would need to be used.
