NEWS of the WEEK
MAR. 28-APR. 4, 2019
by BLANCA GARCIA , KEITH HAMM, TYLER HAYDEN @TylerHayden1, NICK WELSH, and JEAN YAMAMURA, with INDEPENDENT STAFF PAU L WELLM AN
Target Acquired
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STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN: A few lucky shoppers check out the new Target on upper State Street.
ENERGY
Rough Seas for Roughnecks
Exxon Workers Displaced by Refugio Spill Hope Trucking Permit Brings Them Back Home
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Flores. There were no accidents. Hardly anyone noticed. The company is also quick to note that it wasn’t their equipment, but a pipe operated by Plains All American Pipeline, that caused the spill. Soon, Santa Barbara County regulators will decide on the trucking application. One of the first big steps in their deliberations will be the release of a draft environmental report examining the potential impacts of the proposal. On the eve of its publication, the Independent spoke with four Exxon workers who have more than their fair share of skin in the game.
BRIAN JOHNSON, MECHANICAL ADVISOR CHAD, AFRICA
In the blink of an eye and the break of a pipe, Brian Johnson went from performing predictive maintenance on all three ExxonMobil platforms — a position he’d held for seven years after working his way up from diesel mechanic—to overseeing a crew of Chadian oil workers in Central Africa. “It’s been a tough transition,” Johnson said. He didn’t have much of a choice. After it became clear the ruptured Plains All American
Pipeline meant a long-term shutdown for Exxon, Johnson—a lifelong Camarillo resident with a wife and two teenage sons—was informed he could either transfer to Chad or be demoted and take a 30 percent pay cut. “I didn’t really know what I was getting into,” he said. “I just knew I needed the money to keep supporting my family.” Johnson couldn’t see uprooting everyone to Africa, so now he “commutes” to his office every 28 days by way of Los Angeles, Paris, and the capital of Chad, N’Djamena. The trip takes around 35 hours, which Johnson has to do on his days off. “It means less time with my family,” he said. The constant time changes make for brutal jet lag on both ends, and it’s difficult jumping in and out of his wife’s and sons’ lives. “I show up and try to keep up the momentum, or I take my wife’s place so she gets a break,” Johnson said. “I have to fit in somewhere.” Relatives step up to help, Brian Johnson (right) but both JohnCOU RTE SY
by Tyler Hayden our years after the Refugio Oil Spill, Santa Barbara Channel drilling platforms remain in an awkward state of suspended animation. So do their crews. Before a ruptured pipeline transporting oil from the offshore platforms to processing plants crippled the region’s oil production, ExxonMobil employed more than 300 workers and contractors. Now its three Gaviota Coast platforms—Heritage, Harmony, and Hondo—as well as its onshore processing plant at Las Flores Canyon have only a handful of people performing basic upkeep. Many workers were laid off. The rest either agreed to move or are making grueling commutes to Exxon sites all over the world. They want to come home. Their best hope right now lies in a pending permit filed by Exxon in September 2017 to restart the platforms and, rather than wait for the broken pipeline to be rebuilt, use trucks to move the oil by highway to inland refineries. Environmental and community groups are resisting the proposal with arguments that Santa Barbara should be shuttering oil operations, not restarting them, and that the trucks pose a risk to drivers and any neighborhood they pass by. Exxon points out that over the course of six months in 2016, under an emergency permit granted after the Refugio oil spill, more than 2,500 tanker trucks hauled over 400,000 barrels of stranded oil from Las
COUNTY After 35 years in the land-use trenches for the County of Santa Barbara’s Planning and Development Department, Dianne Black officially retired last week after being fêted, wined, dined, and praised at a farewell celebration attended by no fewer than five planning directors. During her tenure as planning director — one of the highest pressure gigs in county government — Black was famously tough as nails. Even when she wasn’t director, most people thought she was, and the department bore her fingerprints to an uncommon degree. That she functioned as long as she did in an executive capacity — in a department where the conflicting pressures of growth, development, and environmental protection play out on a daily basis — makes her the bureaucratic equivalent of Cal Ripken. Black’s successor, Lisa Plowman, just took over the helm, representing the department at the Board of Supervisors meeting for the first time on Tuesday.
he South Coast’s first Target store opened its doors Tuesday evening to community leaders, members of the press, and friends and family of employees. Located at State and La Cumbre, the two-story, 30,000-squarefoot store is one of the chain’s larger “small format” stores, with all of the usual Target departments (plus groceries, minus pharmacy and Starbucks), with a smaller selection. Some of the surrounding traf traffic lanes have been reconfigured for the traffic it’s anticipated to bring; locals have also raised concerns about parking as the building’s lot only offers 91 spaces. The store is now officially open to the public, but it will have its grand opening celebration on Sunday. The Goleta Target will be more than 100,000 square feet and is expected to open in October. —Starshine Roshell
NEWS BRIEFS
Jalama Beach County Park — that often windy and always scenic campground between Point Conception and Vandenberg Air Force Base — has doubled in size as county supervisors picked up an offer to dedicate 35 oceanfront acres on the park’s southern boundary. The dedicated land comes from a 2017 settlement between the California Coastal Commission and the Baupost Group, an investment firm that agreed to donate the 35 acres and restore nearby coastal habitat after illegal roads and wells were discovered on its remote, 24,000-acre Cojo Jalama Ranch. Baupost has since sold to The Nature Conservancy, which paid $165 million via a donation by Jack and Laura Dangermond, the owners of Esri, a pioneer in digital mapping. Their record-setting donation and purchase were contingent on Baupost agreeing to the habitat restoration and offer to dedicate. The acreage can be used for public access, habitat conservation, and passive recreation under the responsibility of the county Parks Division.
DEATH Marcie Kjoller, a UCSB Hall of Fame swimmer who remained in the community as a teacher and an inspirational fitness advocate, drowned on 3/31 off East Beach. Kjoller, 50, had been swimming in the ocean when her companions lost contact with her. After she was found and pulled ashore, CPR was administered but failed to revive her. “It’s a huge loss,” said Gregg Wilson, UCSB’s retired swimming coach. “Marcie was an impactful person from her college days to the present.” Marcie Fuller (her maiden name) came to UCSB from Moraga in 1986. She helped the Gaucho women’s swim team win four Big West championships. As a freestyler on relay teams, she earned NCAA All-America honors in 1987, 1988, and 1990. Kjoller later started teaching at Vieja Valley School and currently taught 1st and 2nd grades at Santa Barbara Charter School in Goleta. Kjoller’s friends have planned a paddle-out in celebration of her life on 4/7 at 1:40 p.m. at East Beach. CONT’D ON PAGE 12
CONT’D ON PAGE 15
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APRIL 4, 2019
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