County officials lack a thorough understanding of the condition of the hundreds of miles of crude oil pipelines in the area and should develop an annual assessment, the Ventura County grand jury said Monday.
The jurors, citing an oil spill last year near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County, said they looked for data on the pipelines in Ventura County.
They concluded that the information exists in various governmental sources but not in a single location. No single governmental entity has a "complete grasp of critical information," such as testing records, the validity of those tests and risks, the 24-page report said.
The Ventura County Board of Supervisors should require that an annual report be developed that would summarize the state of crude oil pipelines within the county, the panel said.
That document should identify risk-associated pipelines and pipelines that fail to meet the standards imposed in permits, the report said. Spills and their causes since the last report should also be summarized, the grand jury said.
Nineteen citizens make up the panel that investigates various aspects of government and recommends changes to the pertinent agencies
For this report, the panel asked for responses from the board of supervisors. The board oversees county government.
April 18, 2016
Ventura County Star
Kathleen Wilson
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