Oil Firms Using Tankers Despite Counties’ Policy : Environment: Ventura and Santa Barbara officials have called for pipelines. But crude is shipped from Bay Area to L.A.

Two major oil companies are using tankers to ship oil from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, despite rulings and policies in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties calling for the use of pipelines rather than ships.

The decision by Chevron and Texaco Inc. to ship oil from the Point Arguello project off Santa Barbara County by pipeline to the Bay Area, and then by tanker to Los Angeles-area refineries, has angered some local officials and environmentalists.

For their part, the oil companies say they are not breaking any laws and, moreover, have no choice because there is no viable way to transport their product to Los Angeles through a pipeline.

“We can’t stick the stuff in a Federal Express packet,” said Michael Marcy, a Ventura County-based Chevron spokesman, in a telephone interview Tuesday.

The oil tankers began their 700-mile journeys to Los Angeles from the Bay Area port of Martinez in Contra Costa County a couple of weeks ago.

The first Texaco tanker shipment of 130,000 barrels left the Martinez port Aug. 19, and Chevron shipped 205,000 barrels Sept. 4, according to company and Santa Barbara County officials.

By the end of the year, about five tanker trips a month are expected from the two oil companies, said Lou Merzario, a planner for the Santa Barbara County Energy Division.

Santa Barbara County supervisors, backed by the California Coastal Commission, had voted to prohibit tankers from carrying oil directly from the Point Arguello platforms to Los Angeles ports, a distance of about 180 miles. Instead, the supervisors backed the use of a pipeline, which they considered environmentally safer.

But a coalition of oil companies, led by Chevron, opposes the pipeline method and last May filed a multimillion-dollar federal lawsuit against Santa Barbara County, challenging its anti-tanker policy.

“There is no pipeline capacity currently available that could carry our crude to the Los Angeles area,” Marcy said.

Oil was first discovered in the Point Arguello area in 1981, and a consortium of 18 companies, led by Chevron, invested more than $2 billion to build three platforms, a marine terminal, onshore treatment plants and gas pipelines.

It appeared that production would finally begin two years ago when Santa Barbara County supervisors issued a permit to allow oil tankers to sail from the Gaviota terminal to Los Angeles refineries. But after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, Santa Barbara environmental groups appealed, the Coastal Commission revoked the tanker permit and production was put on hold.

The Coastal Commission now is trying to determine the legality of the use of tankers, and Santa Barbara County officials are investigating whether the oil companies are violating any county policies or laws.

The issue of tankers versus pipelines is more focused in Santa Barbara County than in Ventura County because there are far more offshore oil platforms there and a major processing terminal at Gaviota.

But the issue has not gone unnoticed in Ventura County.

According to Keith Turner, planning director for the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, county lawmakers over the years have backed a policy discouraging the use of tankers.

“We prefer pipelines to tankering because of the obvious environmental risk,” he said.

Additionally, Turner said, the supervisors’ policy is that if tankers are used, the routes should take them beyond the Channel Islands.

Chevron spokesman Marcy said the tankers were being routed 25 to 50 miles offshore, far from the ecologically sensitive islands.

“That’s the lesser of two evils,” said Ventura County Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, who was elected to the board on an environmentalist platform. Still, she said Tuesday, “there needs to be some sort of stronger state or national policy (on the tanker issue) rather than these companies taking a backhanded route.”

“It might be something the supervisors would want to make a statement on,” she added.

A Ventura County environmentalist, who requested anonymity, said tanker routes even 50 miles offshore are too close to the mainland.

“The risk of a major oil spill hitting the coastline increases with every tanker that cruises by,” the source said.