Gas, oil leak at facility closes off Palmer Road

In the sixth release reported at a local Greka Energy facility in less than a week, a ruptured

four-inch pipeline at the company's Bell Lease on Palmer Road was found to be leaking gas vapor and an undetermined amount of oil and produced water Wednesday morning, a Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman said.

Capt. Eli Iskow of the county fire department said that hydrogen sulfide gas, which is toxic in high concentrations, was coming from the damaged pipe. The amount detected near the pipe, however, was not determined to be toxic, he said.

A strong odor was reported about 9 a.m. Wednesday to the county fire department by a county hazardous materials unit specialist investigating the status of Greka's ongoing cleanup of the grounds, Iskow said.

Palmer Road was closed to public traffic until about 11 a.m. between Highway 101 and Dominion Road while the incident in the 6000 block of Palmer was investigated.

Greka employees stopped the gas leak by shutting down and depressurizing the pipeline, pulling its contents into a vacuum truck, and capping the line about 2 p.m., Iskow said.

The installation remained shut down Wednesday afternoon, Iskow said, but Greka employees were allowed to do some work in order to meet the requirements to reopen the facility.

The pipe traveled both above and below ground, he said, and the rupture took place underground.

“We don't know how ... long this leak has been going on,” Iskow said, and added that the amount of crude oil and contaminants in the ground would not be known until the area was excavated.

“We don't know how much went into the ground or how far,” he said.

Greka responded in a written statement Wednesday that since there is no hydrogen sulfide gas produced at the facility, “Greka facilities could not have been the source of any such leak, if in fact there was a leak.”

The fire department should not have focused on Greka alone, the company said, and should have concentrated on the gas lines and facilities of other area operators.

Iskow said that hydrogen sulfide was indeed coming from the pipe, and that its presence was confirmed by the gas' unique smell, the presence of yellow crystals on the ground near the leak, and readings from detecting tools that noted volatile gases.

Hydrogen sulfide is a natural by-product of the oil production process, he said.

“We're not saying they produced it,” Iskow said. “It's a natural by-product.”

The Bell Lease incident Wednesday followed two crude oil spills reported Saturday at other Greka facilities.

The first, about 84 gallons, was reported around 5 a.m. at Greka's Chamberlain Tank Battery in the 5000 block of Zaca Station Road.

The second, about 294 gallons, was reported around 11:40 a.m. at Greka's Ucal Tank Battery in the 6000 block of Dominion Road.

On March 20, three oil spills, together totaling 336 gallons, happened at the Greka Ucal Lease in the 6000 block of Dominion Road, according to the county fire department.

Robert Emmers, Greka spokesman, said that he didn't have details on the week's previous spills, but thought “they were all pretty minor.”

Samantha Yale can be reached at 739-2159 or syale@santamariatimes.com.

March 27, 2008