Santa Barbara's Continous Fight Against Greka Oil Company

The picture of the thick oil spill on our beautiful Earth made my stomach drop and feel sick. The dark black oil stared back at me as I read the article about Greka and the repeated violations Santa Barbara has yet to fight against. Don't get me wrong, Santa Barbara's few have been fighting against Greka to shut them down for quite a while now, but for some reason, Greka's wrong-doings have been kept quiet and under wraps. For those of you who haven't heard about Santa Barbara's number one polluter, Greka has quietly been earning a reputation as "California's number-one inland oil polluter with little to no fanfare from the media, environmentalists, or county officials." "Racking up more than 200 documented spills that leaked at least 500,000 gallons of oil, violating county air quality standards more than 300 times with releases of potentially deadly natural gases, and provoking a visit from the county's hazmat teams 400 times in fewer than nine years--not to mention being successfully prosecuted by the federal government for violating the Safe Drinking Water Act", Santa Barbara environmentalists and current residents should wonder why Greka hasn't been shut down. I wonder why Greka hasn't been shut down....State Assembly member Pedro Nava, upon reading about the accidents and learning about Greka's long history of violations, called for his own multi-agency fact-finding hearing. "I was stunned that this was going on in Santa Barbara County of all places, "states Nava. "It is clear that somebody is not taking care of business down there." Nava feels the county has enough evidence and information gathered on Greka to be shut down. "I have no idea [why they haven't been shut down yet]. And I think a lot of people are starting to scratch their heads and ask that very same question."

Greka's history includes 67 owned facilities, 11 stations and several hundred wells in Santa Barbara County, though many of the latter currently are not in use. However, though Greka does not have the several hundred wells in use, they still have a massive amount of strikes against them. The S.B. County Fire Department's Tom Franklin, whose agency is the first to be called when Greka has spills, said that of the 20 onshore operators, "It is Greka that again and again takes up our time and resources." He then held up a folder of incident reports that was several inches thick. He wasn't the only one keeping track. The Santa Barbara Independent also had an ever-growing folder of all the press releases regarding Greka's oil spill incidents. Fishing and Game's Mike Connell describes, "The stretch of creek the oil gets in is always decimated and the produced water spills are just as dangerous." Those who've seen the historic devastation report that the once pristine stretches of oak savannah and meandering stream ecosystems tucked into the green rolling hills between Gaviota and Santa Maria are now wastelands of deprived soil and ravaged grass, covered with broken down rusted machinery. County Fir'es Iskow has seen some of the worst Greka areas and earlier this year commented, "If you walk back through the Greka land lease, places where they have had little spills throughout the years, you will still see destruction, pollution and oil everywhere." There are long term impacts Greka is imposing on the surrounding Earth. When oil spills into the waterways, it turns the dirt into a sort of asphalt, blocking rainwater from soaking in and increasing stream velocity, which leads to more erosion. There is widespread knowledge about the ongoing violation issues with Greka throughout the county. So once again..why hasn't justice been brought against Greka??

After Greka was nailed for nearly burning to death two strawberryfield workers after one of the company's tanks exploded in 2003, Jerry Lulejiam, a senior deputy district attorney in the North County, approached Judge Rodney Melville in 2004 wanting to stop the company's operations. Melville denied the move because the judge did not want the court to "become a second layer of enforcement over County Fire and the APCD." At the same time, the EPA fined Greka $1.1 million for illegally putting highly toxic produced water - a byproduct of crude oil extraction - back into the Earth by injecting it into dried-up wells. Greka is also on probation with the EPA until 2010 for further refinery issues from 2004 & 2005. Since January alone, Greka has been served with 4 separate clean-up orders from the EPA. These orders levy fines up to $32,500/day for not following proper clean-up procedures and tack on additional per-barrel fees for the spills themselves. These facts raise another intriguing unanswered question: With all the strikes against them, how is Greka funding their high fines and court cases while still remaining in business?

Many people involved in trying to shut Greka down believe that they are being somewhat protected by higher officials. There are many things to take into account but one is if Greka were to be shut down, the clean-up fees would likely fall on the county, which means less tax revenue, more environmental expenses and little incentive to go after Greka. Greka also has huge tie-in connections to county powerbrokers such as 3'rd District Supervisor Brooks Firestone and 3'rd District Supervisor Willy Chamberlain, suggesting higher people being involved in Greka maintaining its operations. Greka's owner, Randeep Grewal, is known for being stingy and tight on the budget when it comes to operational costs - a fact that many feel is responsible for Greka's chronic spilling.

The fact that the public does not have more knowledge about Greka's wrong-doings is due to the fact that inland oil spills are more easy to cover up and since they happen on private land, easier to hide. We pride ourselves as Santa Barbarians that we are the original birthplace of the environmental movement. But how much pride should we have if the number one California oil polluter is right in our backyards and we are not doing anything about it? Hopefully more knowledge is spread regarding Greka and it's harmful practices before it is too late. It's been more than 30 years since the first big oil spill that caused an upwelling of saving the Earth to be born in Santa Barbara. Where is Santa Barbara's original environmental passion? Let's hope it doesn't take another big oil spill on our shores to remind us of our original S.B. environmental roots.

**Reference: Santa Barbara Independent, April 17, 2008, Ethan Stewart