Firm Seeks OK to Build Pipeline to Transport Oil : Environment: Project would be used to ship the fuel south from offshore fields. It would run from Santa Barbara County to southern Los Angeles County.

Promoters of a 170-mile pipeline that is considered the safest method for transporting oil along the California coastline 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 the San Fernando Valley and on to Wilmington in southern 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 pipeline is separate from a Mobil Oil project replacing another oil pipeline that runs southward through the San Fernando Valley from Kern County oil fields to a refinery in Torrance.

The proposed Santa Barbara-to-Wilmington project would carry 130,000 barrels of thick crude oil a day in a pipeline that 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 Pipeline 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.

From Ventura, the proposed route would take the pipeline northeast along the Santa Clara River and California 126 to Santa Clarita. There it would cross the Santa Clara River and head south along the Golden State Freeway through the San Fernando Valley, then on to Wilmington.

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

The line will 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.

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.”