Environmental groups sue to block revival of Santa Barbara pipeline tied to 2015 spill

Two lawsuits filed in state court Tuesday aim to block the reopening of a Santa Barbara County oil pipeline that ruptured a decade ago and triggered the devastating Refugio State Beach spill. Environmental groups say state regulators unlawfully cleared the way for a Texas company to restart the same system without proper safety reviews or public input.

Last year, the environmental groups filed two federal court lawsuits to block use of the pipelines.

"All of these cases relate back to the disastrous 2015 Refugio State Beach oil spill," said Julie Teel Simmonds, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity in Oakland, when reached on Tuesday. "An onshore pipeline carrying oil from offshore from the Santa Ynez Unit corroded and ruptured and spilled what's now believed to be over 400,000 gallons of oil. Ten years later, literally almost on the cusp of the anniversary of that oil spill, there's a huge and aggressive effort to restart that pipeline system."

A company called Sable Energy wants to reconnect an onshore pipeline system to the Santa Ynez Unit, a dormant system of offshore oil and gas rigs. The Texas-based company bought the rigs from ExxonMobil Corp. in 2022 and announced plans to use them to pump 28,000 gallons of oil per day. In 2024, it also bought the Las Flores Pipeline System, which services the Santa Ynez rigs.

Neither Sable nor its attorneys in one of the federal cases responded to emails seeking comment on Tuesday.

Tuesday's lawsuits list Sable as a real party in interest. Center for Biological Diversity v. California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection, 25CV02244 (S. Barbara Super. Ct., filed April 15, 2025) and Environmental Defense Fund v. California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection, 25CV02247 (S. Barbara Super. Ct., filed April 15, 2025).

The center's complaint claims the state agency known as CalFire violated pipeline safety laws and the California Environmental Quality Act when it issued waivers to allow Sable to move ahead with the project. In the complaint, Simmonds wrote that the 2015 spill followed decades of failures to maintain and inspect the corroded pipeline.

"Cal Fire's approval of the State Waivers for the Project violated CEQA and state and federal pipeline safety laws including, without limitation, failing to conduct full environmental review; failing to provide public notice and a public hearing; failing to demonstrate that the State Waivers are consistent with pipeline safety, that they are not a risk to public safety, and that the probability of injury or damage is remote; and failing to provide a statement of reasons and discussion of significant factors before issuing its decisions," she wrote.

The other complaint challenges CalFire's waivers to restart the Las Flores pipeline. Linda Krop, the lead lawyer for the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara, argued that the agency's Office of the State Fire Marshall violated several state laws when it gave Sable permission to "restart, rather than replace, the defective pipeline system."

"We have already seen first-hand the devastation that these pipelines can wreak on coastal resources," Krop wrote. "But the 120-mile-long pipeline system also threatens major sources of water supply, renowned parks and ecological reserves, and a number of endangered and special-status species."

The center also filed the two federal complaints, one each naming the current and former U.S. secretaries of the interior for their alleged roles in approving efforts to reopen the offshore drilling operations: Center For Biological Diversity v. Haaland, 2:24-cv-05459-MWC-MAA (C.D. Cal., filed June 27, 2024) and Center For Biological Diversity v. Burgum, 2:25-cv-02840-MWC-MAA (C.D. Cal., filed April 2, 2025).

President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to ramp up domestic fossil fuel production. But Simmonds said Sable's efforts to reopen the Santa Ynez and Las Flores facilities were well underway during President Joe Biden's administration.

U.S. District Court Judge Michelle Williams Court signed an order on Monday relating the two federal cases. In December, she granted Sable's motion to intervene in the Haaland case.

"Although there is overlap between Sable and the Defendants' interests, the Court recognizes that Sable's property, contractual, and overall financial interests will likely differ at times from Defendants' governmental and public interests...Sable will proceed in this case the same way as any other separately represented party," Williams Court wrote.