Sable Offshore becomes region's top smog producer upwind of Malibu Play

The Texas oil company that is restarting offshore oil drilling 60 miles upcoast from Malibu is blowing past smog limits and is burning contaminants at its offshore oil platform.

The Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District last week allowed the smog production to continue, allowing Sable Offshore Oil to become the biggest producer of smog in the area upwind of Malibu.

At the Santa Barbara hearing, Sable said shutting down the offshore oil pumping might be dangerous and would cost the oil company almost $2 million a day in revenue. It claimed that an immediate shutdown would require workers to quickly depressurize the equipment, quickly releasing a large amount of smog-causing contaminants.

Anti-oil lawyers say Sable's onshore facilities contributed 55% of Santa Barbara County's total greenhouse gas emissions. The facilities are also the county's largest source of volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, and formaldehyde — all of which have been linked to cancers and respiratory diseases.

Again, this is 60 miles upwind of Malibu.

Sable has been flagrantly violating California anti-smog laws, and the state's property rights, by operating a corroded pipeline across state park beaches upcoast of Santa Barbara. Sable Offshore Corp. has reportedly asked the Trump administration to exercise eminent domain to condemn and seize miles of private and state-owned land in California that are crossed by its pipeline.

Late last week, Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a second lawsuit against the Trump administration. He says the feds illegally waived federal rust-prevention rules and let Sable Offshore bypass corrosion control standards for its rusty pipeline.

Indeed, this same pipeline sprang a leak in 2015, coating the coast near Santa Barbara with crude oil. The oil spill devastated 150 miles of the California coast, killing hundreds of birds and marine mammals and shutting down beaches and fisheries as far south as Malibu and Santa Monica.

Investigators found that the spill was the result of external rust, and the pipeline still does not meet federal corrosion prevention standards.

Last week, a federal judge ruled against Sable, rejecting its claim that it has a property right to restart its oil operation on federal and state land.

The company is right now piping its oil to the Chevron oil refinery near LAX via a roundabout route — up the coast, east to Bakersfield, over the Grapevine and down Sepulveda Boulevard to El Segundo.