EPA Seeks Further Pipeline Plan Studies : Environment: The request is not expected to jeopardize the oil project, says an official for the firm working on the endeavor.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has called for further studies of a proposed oil pipeline through Ventura County, but the request is not expected to jeopardize the $215-million project, the president of the pipeline company said Thursday.

“It’s normal for the EPA to want that, but we have a tremendous amount of environmental studies on our side,” said Norm Rooney, head of Ventura-based Pacific Pipeline System Inc.

In a recent letter to the California Public Utilities Commission, the EPA cited the potential for significant ecological harm to wildlife and streams along the 171-mile pipeline that would carry 130,000 barrels of heavy crude a day from offshore oil fields at Point Arguello to refineries in Los Angeles.

The EPA praised the draft of a state environmental report but urged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct its own study of potential environmental hazards, including the potential for earthquake-induced spills.

“The EPA is very concerned with the potential adverse impacts to water quality, riparian habitat, biodiversity and air quality which would result from oil spills and pipeline construction,” the EPA letter said.

The Pacific Pipeline, which would begin north of Santa Barbara and snake through Ventura County for 53 miles, is preferred by oil companies over several alternatives. But the project must meet a progression of deadlines imposed by the California Coastal Commission in order to remain in the running.

The Coastal Commission, which has given oil companies permission to use ocean-going tankers in the Santa Barbara Channel as long as a pipeline is built by Jan. 1, 1996, has set a Sept. 15 deadline for pipeline companies to complete an environmental impact report that satisfies the California Environmental Quality Act.

The EPA’s request for additional information will not affect Pacific Pipeline’s ability to meet the state deadline, Rooney said. A manager with the Public Utilities Commission, which will approve or reject the environmental impact report, said Pacific Pipeline has complied with California regulations.

“Our hope and expectations are that it will be certified,” said Martha Sullivan, regulatory analyst for the commission.

But the EPA request could provide obstacles for the pipeline if the federal review process drags on, officials said. A Coastal Commission deadline requires oil companies to commit to a pipeline project by February--and failure of Pacific Pipeline to meet federal regulations by then could tip the scales in favor of another pipeline company, officials said.

Although compliance with federal environmental standards can take from six months to a year, neither the EPA nor Pacific Pipeline and the oil companies think it will take that long.

“The EIR was fairly comprehensive,” said Jacqueline Wyland, chief of the EPA’s federal activities office in San Francisco. “We’re not requiring a lot of extra work. Just clarification and explanation.”

Although the Corps of Engineers is not obligated to enforce the EPA’s request, it will probably require Pacific Pipeline to apply for a federal permit to cross streams and wetlands, a corps spokesman said. To get the permit under the federal Clean Water Act, Pacific would have to satisfy strict environmental regulations.

But Tom Tibbetts, a pipeline consultant for Exxon, doesn’t think the permit will be a problem.

“We always knew we’d need this type of permit,” Tibbetts said. Filing the necessary documents, he said, “was built into the timetable.”