Panel to Let Chevron Ship Oil Off Coast : Environment: The state commission approves the use of tankers to transport crude from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. The decision caps a 10-year battle.

Up to 2.2 million gallons of crude oil a day could be transported in tankers down Ventura County’s coast during the next three years, the California Coastal Commission decided Wednesday.

The decision capped a decade-long battle pitting Chevron against Santa Barbara officials and environmentalists in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, who oppose the oil company’s plan to ship crude from its giant Point Arguello oil project off Santa Barbara to Los Angeles.

The proposed tanker route would send the oil along shipping lanes in the Santa Barbara Channel between Ventura County’s coast and the offshore Channel Islands National Park.

The commission’s decision prompted sharp criticism from Ojai-based environmental activist Alasdair Coyne, who said the increased ship traffic through the Santa Barbara Channel would make it difficult to avoid an accident.

“The basic combination of human oversight and tanker traffic means that spills are going to happen,” Coyne said. “I think it would be a pretty awful scenario if you had an oil tanker hit an oil platform.”

But others hailed the decision as an acceptable compromise between environmental and business interests. Former Rep. Robert Lagomarsino, who won designation of the Channel Islands as a national park and worked to reroute oil tanker traffic outside their sensitive habitat during his years in Congress, called it a reasonable decision.

“I don’t see anything particularly wrong with it,” he said.

The commission’s decision means that Chevron tanker traffic could begin as early as late March.

Commissioners, in a 7-to-4 vote during a packed hearing in Santa Monica, set several restrictions in approving Chevron’s permit request. Chevron will have to meet a series of deadlines to continue using tankers and must cease all tanker traffic by Jan. 1, 1996. The tankers will have to have double hulls, making them more safe in the event of an accident.

They also will require Chevron to conduct an environmental survey of Ventura County’s coast so if there is a spill, regulatory authorities will know what needs to be done to restore beaches and sensitive habitat. And the company must provide a radar-tracking system for vessels in a portion of the shipping lanes off Ventura County that is not already covered by Los Angeles systems.

Chevron and its partners in the $2.5-billion offshore oil venture will have to agree on the conditions set by the commission, but approval is likely.

“I would hope we’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel now,” said C. L. Blackwell Jr., a general manager for Chevron’s western region. “It’s a reasonable compromise.”

Another Chevron official said he expects Chevron’s partners, including Phillips Petroleum and Texaco, to accept the permit terms within a couple weeks.

Chevron and its partners now ship oil from Point Arguello in a roundabout route through existing pipelines to Northern California and then by ship back to Los Angeles. Most of the crude from Point Arguello goes to refineries in Los Angeles.

Environmentalists had wanted Chevron to continue to use existing pipelines until a new onshore pipeline from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles can be built. Several routes for such a pipeline have been proposed but none are yet being built.

Opponents of the Chevron permit said they were uncertain what their next step might be.

Lisa Weil, policy director of the Santa Monica-based American Oceans Campaign, said environmental groups will have to discuss whether to fight Chevron’s permit in court. But that option may not be practical, “given our resources in money and time, up against an industry with such deep pockets.”

Sara Wan, vice chairman of the League for Coastal Protection, predicted that the tankers “will go through. I don’t think the environmentalists will have the funds to fight Chevron . . . . But the commission will rue the day they did this.”

Environmentalists and the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors have long feared a tanker spill as devastating as the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, which soiled beaches there after an explosion at an offshore well.

The commission’s decision would allow Chevron to increase production at Point Arguello from 50,000 barrels a day to 85,000.

Gov. Pete Wilson said in a statement, “I applaud the Coastal Commission for taking this courageous stand.” He added that the decision provides “strong, long-term protection for California’s pristine coastline and solid jobs for hundreds of Californians.”

Santa Barbara County supervisors and environmentalists agreed in 1983 to allow drilling at Point Arguello only after the oil companies promised to build a pipeline to transport the oil to Los Angeles. In the event of an accident, spills from land-based pipelines can be more easily contained than those from ocean-going tankers.

Since then, Chevron has asked to ship oil south in tankers temporarily, while a pipeline is being built. But Santa Barbara County officials and environmentalists have been suspicious of Chevron’s intentions. They worry that once Chevron begins using tankers, it will find a legal loophole to continue the practice indefinitely. Shipping oil by tanker is cheaper than building a pipeline.

Chevron has fueled these suspicions by shying from a binding agreement to use a pipeline. Pipeline builders say they need such an agreement--guaranteeing adequate oil volume from producers--before they can finance construction.

In August, Santa Barbara County offered Chevron a tanker permit contingent on Chevron and its partners signing such a binding agreement. Chevron then balked and appealed to the state Coastal Commission, which can override the county on such issues.

Chevron also sued Santa Barbara County in state and federal courts for $2 billion, accusing the county of interfering with interstate commerce, among other charges. Chevron also filed a related suit against the Coastal Commission. The commission agreed to reconsider the issue late last year.

Chevron will have to sign a binding agreement to use a pipeline by Feb. 1, 1994, or it can no longer use tankers.

In any event, whether a new pipeline exists or not, the oil producers must stop using tankers to ship oil by Jan. 1, 1996.

If it accepts the permit, Chevron would abandon its lawsuits against the commission and Santa Barbara County. It would also immediately cease its current shipping methods.

Parrish is a Times staff writer and Saillant is a Times correspondent.