OK Sought for Cross-County Oil Pipeline : Environment: The firm trying to build the $200-million project and activists agree that it would be safer than transporting crude by tanker.

Promoters of a 170-mile pipeline that is considered the safest method for transporting oil along the California coastline and through Ventura County applied for state approval Thursday to begin construction.

Pacific Pipeline System Inc., a sister company of Southern Pacific railroad, filed an application with the California Public Utilities Commission for permission to build the line from Gaviota in Santa Barbara County, through Ventura County and on to Wilmington in Los Angeles County.

It would cost nearly $200 million to build and would not be completed before the spring of 1994, officials said.

The PUC is expected to take up to two months to decide whether to accept the application. It would then hold hearings over the following year to get comments from residents and officials of city, county and state agencies.

The 20-inch underground line, which would carry 130,000 barrels of thick crude oil a day, would follow one of two routes along the Southern Pacific right of way through Ventura County.

Building the pipeline along the right of way would reduce effects on the environment, limit traffic disruptions and eliminate the need to buy or lease land, project backers said.

“This will be the safest pipeline that’s ever been built,” said Norman Rooney, president of Pacific Pipelines and head of the engineering company that oversaw preliminary environmental studies.

The proposed route follows the coast from Gaviota, about 30 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, to Seacliff where it would join an existing 11-mile pipeline that crosses the Ventura River. The existing 22-inch line could require repair in some spots, but the environmental disruption would be far less than that of building a new line, Rooney said.

From Ventura, the proposed route would take the pipeline northeast along the Santa Clara River and California 126 to Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County. There it would cross the Santa Clara River and head south to Wilmington.

The alternate route would take the line south from Ventura to Oxnard. Then it would head east, passing through Simi Valley and on to Burbank, where it would turn south to Wilmington.

Using the existing Southern Pacific right of way would protect the environment by using an area that has already been disturbed, Rooney said. In addition, at 225 junctures with public roads, holes will be bored beneath the pavement so traffic would not be interrupted during construction, he said.

The line will also be made of thicker material and will be buried five feet underground, compared to most existing pipelines, which are three feet below ground, Rooney said.

The plan drew preliminary support from environmentalists and the California Coastal Commission, which have opposed shipping oil by tanker through coastal waters.

“We are paranoid of tankers,” said Robert Sollen, spokesman on oil issues for the Santa Barbara/Ventura chapter of the Sierra Club. “We have taken a strong position in favor of pipelines to move oil.”

Jim Burns, chief deputy director of the Coastal Commission, said officials there are pleased with “the concept of having pipelines to transport the oil. We know that tankering has a much higher probability of a spill than shipping by land.”

The application was supported by Chevron Corp. and other companies that would be able to use the line to ship oil south from offshore oil fields. Chevron and 11 other companies helped pay the $2-million bill for preliminary environmental studies on the project.

Chevron attorney Richard Harris said Thursday that the oil company’s support of the plan should convince decision makers and the public that Chevron is committed to using a pipeline to ship oil from its offshore Point Arguello project. In the meantime, Chevron should be allowed to ship the oil by tanker down the coast, Harris said.

Chevron made the same argument before the California Coastal Commission last April, but the panel denied Chevron’s appeal of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors’ prohibition on using tankers to ship Point Arguello oil.

“There were indications that people were suspect that the pipeline would ever come to fruition,” Harris said. “We hope now that people will begin to believe . . . our sincerity.”

But Burns said Chevron still has not committed in writing to using the pipeline.

“There were so many years of promising they would use a pipeline and then avoiding it altogether,” Burns said. “This has happened several times.”

In addition, Burns said, a commitment to use the pipeline at its completion does not diminish the potential hazard of a spill from a tanker in the next several years.

“We have the same concern to protect the environment now that we had in April,” he said.