VENTURA : Panel to Consider OKing Marine Study

The California Coastal Commission will consider Thursday whether to approve a three-year study on the state of the marine environment off the coast of Ventura and Los Angeles counties and the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

The $600,000 study would be funded by Chevron Corp. and its Point Arguello corporate partners in compliance with a condition of approval for a 1993 permit to ship oil by tanker.

The study would be done under the auspices of the UCLA environmental science and engineering department.

“This will be the first systematic and comprehensive study of our coastline,” said Richard Ambrose, a UCLA associate professor of environmental science and engineering.

Ambrose said with the study, scientists and others will know which areas in the region are particularly vulnerable to damage from an oil spill.

Chevron’s shipping permit was recently suspended after the company failed to meet a Feb. 1 deadline to have established an agreement with an overland pipeline company.

In related matters, the commission will also be asked to approve the annual discharge of about 49,000 barrels of drilling muds and about 29,000 barrels of drill cuttings off Chevron’s Platform Gail, situated about 11 miles southwest of Ventura.

The oil platform, which was built in 1987, produces about 4,500 barrels of oil and 20,000 cubic feet of natural gas every day. Chevron’s discharge plan, which also includes other industrial fluids in addition to sanitary and domestic wastes, has already been approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Commission staff members have also recommended approval for the discharge plan, arguing that it produces a smaller threat to the environment than shipping the wastes off the platform on barges or other forms of surface transportation. Both items will be before the commission during its meeting Thursday in San Diego.