Rachel and her reference to Santa Barbara and Earth Day [View all]

[LompocDem]

I was a 16 year old surfer when Platform A had its blowout. Santa Barbra channel crude, which is very toxic, and contains very high levels of SO2. So high that the California Coastal Commission somewhere around 1987 refused permitting of the transfer of crude oil extracted from the federal lease in the Santa Barbara channel by pipe to the Chevron processing facility at Mariposa Reina unless the crude was scrubbed of SO2 prior to reaching land. These regulations are still in place to this day. Back then Chevron's response was to anchor a SO2 scrubbing vessel offshore to scrub the SO2 before the crude hit the shoreline via pipeline. In 1969 the residents of Carpinteria, where Platform A was less than 2 miles offshore of a popular beach called 'The Jelly Bowl' had no idea of the danger that the crude oil extraction imposed on us. Me and several friends surfed in the muck because the winter waves were too good to ignore. We were never informed of the toxicity of crude oil at the time. This oil spill event, http://www.sbcountyplanning.org/energy/information/1969blowout.asp and the aftermath is why we Californians have a voice in limiting offshore oil extraction efforts to the point that the decline and absolute restrictions of acquiring and developing new and existing federal leases to operate in the Santa Barbara Channel. https://thinkprogress.org/how-a-massive-oil-spill-in-1969-changed-everything-c4da7ecd5038?gi=8f0a914c9b17

This is home to me, any federal assault on my states restrictions on oil and gas extraction is an act that will not be tolerated!