No to Oil Terminal

A proposal to reopen an oil terminal off the shore of Huntington Beach should be proclaimed dead in the water. But if it is not, the first step should be a full-scale environmental impact review. The danger the terminal would pose to Orange County’s environment is great; the burden of proof that the terminal would not harm the city or county is equally great.

CENCO Refining Co. bought a Santa Fe Springs refinery in March, along with the marine terminal off Huntington Beach and a 20-acre onshore oil storage facility off Newland Street in Huntington Beach. None of those facilities are operating now.

A Santa Fe Springs official sees no problem with firing up the refinery there again. But Huntington Beach officials want to keep the facilities on land and in the sea near their city shut down.

The offshore terminal is the same one to which the tanker American Trader was mooring in February 1990 when it ran over its anchor, punctured its hull and spilled about 400,000 gallons of crude oil into the waters.

The spill closed Orange County beaches for weeks, killed at least 1,000 birds and cost millions of dollars to clean up. It also provided a sobering reminder of the fragility of the coast, one of the marvels of Southern California. Fortunately, the spill was much smaller than the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. And the eventual response in Sacramento and Washington to the Orange County accident was good. State lawmakers passed the nation’s most comprehensive oil-spill prevention and cleanup plan. Federal law required that new tankers be double-hulled.

A CENCO lawyer said the company could get its crude oil from a Long Beach terminal pipeline rather than from tankers moored off Huntington Beach. That would be preferable.

The lawyer also said that because CENCO bought the assets of companies permitted to operate the terminal, pipeline and refinery, it would not need as extensive an environmental review as if it were building new facilities. But those facilities have been closed for years. More is involved than simply hanging out a sign with the new owner’s name.

The company needs to address air quality issues as well as the possibility of oil spills. If CENCO decides to try to reopen the Huntington Beach facilities, a full environmental review should be required and hearings scheduled to allow the public to address the issue.