A string of spills in the Santa Maria Valley could close down Greka Energy permanently

Leana Orsua
KSBY 6
01/08/2008

A string of spills could close a Central Coast oil company permanently.
Here's the Latest:
A report on the Greka Energy oil spills is being compiled by several Santa Barbara County regulatory agencies The county Board of Supervisors will review the report next week. The county legal counsel will decide whether or not the Board of Supervisors should vote to shut the company down. The Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District is reporting violations related to rule and regulation infractions.
Combine those with the oil spill problems, it could make for a permanent company closure.
On Saturday Greka Energy's growing list of violations hit a boiling point. 84,000 gallons of crude oil flowed in to a creek bed near Los Olivos. It marked the company's largest spill to date, even surpassing the San Francisco Bay spill last fall.
"In my 30 years in the oil pollution business I have never seen another company get this many violations," said Terry Dressler of the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District.
Dressler says Greka has had 287 violations since 1999, an average of one violation every ten days.
Now he and a host of other environmental agencies are compiling a report on Greka's numerous infractions. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will review the report next week. They could choose to shut the company down.
"It is a lot of violations to have. Greka oil and gas company is very challenging from a compliance perspective for the Air Pollution Control District," explained Dressler.
One day before the Saturday spill, Assemblyman Pedro Nava hosted an emergency meeting to assess the environmental and financial impact the company poses to the community.
"This particular company has a very large history of numerous and multiple violations going back over the last eight years," said Nava.
Action News asked the county why they let all the company's violations go so far. They said they wouldn't comment until the report is released tomorrow.
A Greka spokesperson blames the Saturday spill on an alarm company which monitors overflows.
Since November Greka has had more than 150,000 gallons of oil spill in to the county.