Maybe They Will Get the Message Now : Chevron needs to face the reality of no tankers at Point Arguello

Chevron Corp. lost another skirmish in the Battle of Point Arguello last week. The company’s best move now is to recognize that tankers and some of nature’s most magnificent coastline mix no better than oil and water.

The California Coastal Commission, by an 8-3 vote, upheld Santa Barbara County’s opposition to a proposal by Chevron and its partners to move oil from their offshore platforms to Gaviota just up the coast from Santa Barbara and ship it by tanker for refining in Los Angeles.

Chevron says it must ship the oil by tanker because its Point Arguello crude will be too heavy to flow through an unheated pipeline, the only kind that is now available. A new pipeline, heated and large enough to move 100,000 barrels a day, will not be finished for four years, and Chevron is very eager to start production on platforms that were finished three years ago but have yet to bring up a drop of oil.

But commission staff said Chevron is not forced to choose between a heated pipeline and tankers. The staff said the Point Arguello oil could be mixed with a lighter grade of crude to reduce its viscosity and make it pipeline-ready. Chevron says that it is prepared to argue in court that blending two kinds of crude oil raises technical impossibilities. But that appeal misses the point. With one tanker mishap after another, tanker usage becomes a carrier of last resort whenever people have good reason to suspect the slightest chance of oil washing up on their beaches or headlands.

Consider, after all, last week’s report on the environmental damage caused by the tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska’s Prince William Sound two years ago. That report says the harm was even worse than it first seemed.

Chevron should face it: As long as the commission thinks there is another way out for the oil than by tanker, there is no way out for Chevron.