Here are the facts of Exxon’s offshore oil and trucking proposal from Santa Barbara’s Environmental Defense Center:
ExxonMobil is seeking approval from Santa Barbara County for a dangerous proposal to restart three offshore oil platforms the oil along our coast to refineries in the Santa Barbara Channel, and then to truck.
The three oil platforms that ExxonMobil proposes to restart ‐ Hondo, Harmony and Heritage ‐ have been shut down for nearly seven years since the Refugio oil spill.
ExxonMobil plans to send 70 tanker trucks, carrying more than 460,000 gallons of oil per day, along the winding coastal Highway 101 and the narrow and over‐crowded Route 166, for up to seven years
Continuing oil production offshore in Santa Barbara County will worsen the current climate crisis
Restarting three offshore oil platforms will increase the immediate threat of oil spills and put the nearby marine ecosystem and coastline at risk
Most of the County‐wide accidents have occurred along the exact route proposed for ExxonMobil’s trucking plans (Highway 101 and Route 166):
59 people injured
28 people dead
Over 100,000 gallons of oil spilled
Introducing more trucks along these highways poses a serious threat to the public, wildlife, agriculture, and surrounding waterways.
Tanker trucks are one of the riskiest ways to transport oil: at least 87 tanker truck crashes have occurred in California in the last 22 years, 14 of which were in Santa Barbara County.
HOW CAN YOU HELP
The Environmental Defense Center, our clients, and our partners have worked tirelessly to combat this project and convinced the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission to recommend denial. The Board of Supervisors will hold a hearing on March 8, 2022.
To help EDC convince the Supervisors to vote no on ExxonMobil, please do the following:
Attend the hearing in person or register in advance to give public comment:
https://santabarbara.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx#current
Email the Board of Supervisors: sbcob@countyofsb.org ”
Also, from The Center for Biological Diversity:
Santa Barbara County will soon decide on a disastrous plan by ExxonMobil to restart three ancient offshore oil platforms and haul up to 70 truckloads of crude oil a day along treacherous coastal highways.
On March 8 the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will vote on Exxon’s proposal, which would rely on one of the most dangerous forms of transporting oil. Since 2015 the proposed oil-trucking route up Highway 101 and Route 166 has seen 216 trucking accidents that killed nine people and injured 92. And by restarting drilling from its three corroded failing platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, Exxon would almost guarantee an oil spill threatening the entire coastal ecosystem — including endangered blue whales, sea otters, and leatherback sea turtles — only to fuel the climate crisis.
Thanks to years of activism by community members like you, the Santa Barbara Planning Commission has recommended rejecting the project. But until the board votes to do that, our county’s health and safety hang in the balance.
Tell Santa Barbara County to scrap Exxon’s dirty oil-trucking proposal once and for all.