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Offshore oil begins flowing again on the tenth anniversary of the Refugio Beach Oil Spill [1]
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Date: 2025-05-20
On May 19 ten years ago, a corroded oil pipeline then owned by the Plains All American Pipeline corporation spilled over 450,000 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County in California.
The disaster resulted in the devastation of marine life, the closure of iconic beaches and a big economic impact on the recreation and fishing-based economy of Southern California.
Ironically, in a classical case of deep regulatory capture that corporate and faux “alternative” media refused to report on, the spill fouled so-called “marine protected areas” created under the leadership of a Big Oil lobbyist — “marine protected areas that weren't protected from oil drilling and other impacts on the ocean other than fishing.
That’s right — Catherine Reheis-Boyd-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), chaired the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative to create “marine protected areas” from 2009 to 2012. And to top things off, Plains All American was a member of the Western States Petroleum Association that Reheis-Boyd lobbied for.
Now, on the exact anniversary of that spill, the oil company that owns the zombie pipeline — and the offshore oil platforms that connect to it — is “rubbing salt in the wound,” the Last Chance Alliance reported in an action alert yesterday.
“This morning, Sable Offshore — the Texas-based company that bought the failed pipeline and is rushing to restart it without following California laws and regulations — announced they’ve restarted oil production off the coast of Santa Barbara. One of the oil platforms that was shut down after the 2015 spill has been brought back from the dead on the anniversary of the spill,” the group wrote.
The regulatory capture continues, with State Parks granting the corporation a CEQA exemption to work on the pipeline.
“Last month, Sable was fined $18 million by the California Coastal Commission for damaging sensitive ecosystems during unpermitted work — and yet, last week, State Parks just granted the company a CEQA exemption, allowing them to move forward with work on the pipeline,” the group stated.
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