It’s a sunny morning at a beautiful Santa Barbara County beach. But, many people don’t know that this stretch of coastline has a dark, dangerous secret.
You can’t see them, but Summerland’s coastline is home to hundreds of old, abandoned, and sometime leaking offshore oil wells, some dating back to the late 1800’s.
It's the focus of the documentary Greetings from Summerland: Birthplace of Offshore Drilling which being shown this weekend as part of an Earth Day celebration in Santa Barbara.
It looks about the abandoned oil well problem in Summerland, and the toxic legacy it’s created.
"The problem out in Summerland is you have these wells which were put in there, more than 400 of them, starting in 1896," said Harry Rabin, who is a documentary filmmaker and also Program Director for Heal the Ocean.
"They put over 200 of them out in the water, offshore. These are the very first offshore wells," said Rabin. "When they were not economically producing enough, they left. They weren't making any money, so they left the wells, they abandoned them poorly."
He said they put rocks, and sand, and wood, and even clothes into the wells to stop the oil's flow. "They left us a legacy that we're dealing with today."
In 2017, with the help of then Santa Barbara State Senator Hanna Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara, the state allocated some money to locate, cap, and properly abandon some of the leaky coastal wells. But, Rabin says they didn’t even scratch the surface of the problem. The funding allowed the State Lands Commission to properly cap seven well identified as among the most critical for problems at the time.
Will we see more of the orphan well leak? Rabin said it depends on the ocean, and the weather, which can damage the old wells, and pipes.
But, Rabin says leaking oil from the orphaned wells is just part of the problem.
"All these abandoned wells which are improperly sealed are emitting methane," said Rabin. It's a potent greenhouse gas which has more than 80 times the strength of carbon dioxide as it reaches the atmosphere."
Rabin said most people don’t even know about the problem, which only makes news when one of the orphaned wells starts to leak, and puts a sheen on the ocean’s surface.
That’s why Rabin teamed up with Joe Szaikiewicz to make the documentary Greetings from Summerland, which explains the problem. It’s a 22 minute long documentary now, and the team is working on a feature length version of the story.
It will be shown Sunday, at Santa Barbara’s Marjorie Luke Theater. The 4 p.m. screening will be followed by a panel featuring the filmmakers, some researchers, and Democratic State Assemblyman Gregg Hart of Santa Barbara. Tickets are available online, and at the door.
Rabin said like many things, properly capping the wells comes down to money. He says one of the hopes is to tap into a $4.7 billion dollar federal fund to cap orphaned oil wells, and see some of that money used to help deal with the issue in Summerland.
