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Should SLO County acquire the Phillips 66 property? One supervisor says it’s worth exploring

After nearly 70 years in business, the Santa Maria Refinery on the Nipomo Mesa will process its last drops of crude oil in early January.

That milestone is fueling renewed speculation about what might eventually happen to the 1,600-acre coastal site.

Potential buyers already have expressed interest, including State Parks. Now another agency could enter the picture: San Luis Obispo County.

Outgoing County Supervisor Lynn Compton is urging the Board of Supervisors to examine the feasibility of acquiring the property.

“There’s just a lot of assets with that property for not just South County, but for the entire county,” she told the board during a preliminary discussion of the idea at the Nov. 1 supervisors meeting. “I think for any one of us to just dismiss it and write it off and say it’s not feasible would be a mistake.”

The board is scheduled to continue discussing the idea at its Dec. 6 meeting when it reviews the county Planning Department’s work plan for the coming year.

A feasibility study is listed as a potential new, long-range planning project, along with a host of other items, including a brick-and-mortar cannabis dispensary ordinance; a rural camping ordinance; a dark skies ordinance; completion of a study to evaluate whether there is a connection between vacation rentals and the lack of affordable housing; RV storage in rural and agricultural areas; and a Harvest Host RV program that allows RVs to spend one night at local vineyards, free of charge.

The length of that list should be enough to discourage the board from moving ahead with a feasibility study on the Phillips 66 property, at least at this time.

The price tag is another.

The county staff report estimates it would cost $632,487 to complete the study, which would require adding staff and hiring a consultant. The scope of the study would include public outreach to set goals and priorities for future land use; a constraints and opportunities analysis; consultation with other local, state and federal agencies; and a fiscal and economic analysis of land use alternatives.

That’s a lot for one agency to take on; if anything, this should be a regional project.

Supervisor Compton is 100% correct in pointing out that the turnover of the property opens up many opportunities, including development of a desalination plant and/or clean energy generation.

A Cal Poly student project analyzed other possible uses that included a regional park with trails and camping facilities; green hydrogen generation; a grid-scale battery storage facility; plastics recycling; and an anaerobic digester that could turn table scraps and other organic material into compost and biogas.

Not only is there the potential to provide essentials like water and energy, such projects also would generate jobs and tax revenue.

But county taxpayers should not be on the hook for picking up the tab for an exploratory study.

Nor should the county consider accepting the land in exchange for remediating the 250-acre refinery site — a possibility that was alluded to during the Nov. 1 discussion.

Cleanup will be an extensive project requiring the demolition of buildings, equipment and pipelines and removal of contaminated soil and debris. There’s no telling just how difficult or expensive that work will be.

Phillips 66 is finalizing an application for a county permit for the cleanup and is preparing to move forward with the work.

“Supervisor Compton is, you know, pitching ideas, but ... our intent right now is that we are going to do the remediation and the demolition,” Ron Gonzales, site manager for Phillips 66, said in an interview with The Tribune. “If the county wants to sit down at the table and negotiate ... taking the property in exchange for (handling site remediation), then we’re happy to listen, but that is not in our plan right now.”

That makes sense.

No way should the county assume the liability for cleaning up a contaminated site.

There may be an opportunity in the future for the county to be involved in a project at the Phillips 66 property, possibly in partnership with other agencies.

But for now, the county is better off waiting to see what develops, rather than prematurely committing to a substantial investment.