The following posts were printed from Santa Maria Sun [santamariasun.com] – Volume 24, Issue 2
Federal court orders HVI Cat Canyon oil business to pay $65 million
By Taylor O’Connor
In the 15 to twenty years that HVI Cat Canyon run in Santa Barbara County, Errin Briggs saw one problem after another however never ever saw any enhancements to the oil business’s functional habits.
As the Santa Barbara County Planning Department’s monitoring coordinator managing oil and gas licenses and leases, he and his staff would communicate with HVI Cat Canyon Inc., previously called Greka Oil Company, regularly.
“There was never any corrective action to their approach,” Briggs said. “It was always, ‘use stuff until it breaks and deal with the consequences once it does.’ We just had constant issues with them.”
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A federal judge just recently purchased HVI to deal with more repercussions by paying the United States and the state of California $65 million in charges for breaking federal guidelines, clean-up expenses, and natural deposit damage, concluding a civil suit submitted versus the business in 2011.
“Based on the totality of the circumstances, the spills evinced a pattern of reckless disregard for good oilfield industry practices and a series of negligent acts or omissions by HVI concerning oil spill prevention, and pipeline and facility inspection and maintenance,” the 65-page judgment specified.
Although the case concentrated on 12 spills (in between 2005 and 2010) that were discovered in offense of the Clean Water Act, court findings reveal that 181 spills were reported to the California Office of Emergency services from 2006 to 2018, when the trial began—with flowline leakages mentioned as triggering the biggest variety of spills and tank level alarm failures as triggering the 2nd greatest, according to the judgment.
“HVI’s history of spills provided clear notice to HVI of systemic and recurring deficiencies in its spill prevention measures,” the judgment specified. “Yet, HVI failed to correct its deficiencies or to prevent them in the first place.”
The U.S. Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the California Water Quality Control Board, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife submitted the match together. In a Justice Department news release, the firms said that this choice holds HVI liable for stopping working to fulfill ecological responsibilities, however county Supervising Planner Briggs said he’d be reluctant to call this a triumph.
HVI applied for insolvency in July 2019 after the state purchased the business, which owed global financial investment bank UBS AG more than $114 million, to pay more than $12 million in fines, according to previous Sun reporting. Briggs said he doesn’t understand where the business will create money to pay the judgement.
“I’d be shocked if this $65 million is paid by Greka [HVI]. The dollar amount makes for a nice headline, but I don’t think anybody out there who was affected by them will see any money,” Briggs said. “This company used Santa Barbara County and went bankrupt and walked away. It’s actually a major bummer.”
When the business stated insolvency, it left more than 500 unplugged oil wells and all the physical facilities of the oil operation in Cat Canyon, leaving the location like a “ghost town,” he said.
“The land is still impacted, but lucky for us the state is going to come in and clean a lot of that up,” Briggs said.
California designated about $200 million in the 2022-23 spending plan devoted to plug wells and decommission centers in the state, according to a state Budget and Policy post. About $25 countless that is concerning Santa Barbara County to plug more 200 wells, Briggs said, keeping in mind that work hasn’t started rather yet, however the state just recently employed a specialist to supervise the work.
“A ray of hope or a ‘small v’ victory is [that] Greka no longer operates oil and gas in this county. That’s a victory,” Briggs said.
Attorneys representing HVI according to online court records might not be grabbed remark by the Sun’s due date.
