Guadalupe Oil Field Cleanup, San Luis Obispo County, California (1997-2002)

CONCUR designed and mediated a dispute resolution process leading to clean-up of the Guadalupe Oil Field for the State of California and Union Oil of California (UNOCAL). The site is located in central California’s San Luis Obispo County. Over the 40-year life of the oil field, more than 15 million gallons of petroleum products gradually leaked into the ground, making it the largest oil spill on land in the United States. Underground plumes of pollution threaten groundwater aquifers, the Pacific Ocean, and the adjacent Santa Maria River. The site, which covers 3,000 acres of the biologically unique Guadalupe-Nipomo Dune Complex, is home to several federally and state-listed threatened and endangered species. CONCUR facilitated a series of agreements enabling the parties to: (1) characterize the nature and extent of pollution at and near the oil field; and (2) agree on a series of steps leading to clean up including field level testing of several novel cleanup technologies.

CONCUR employed an approach whereby policy discussions and technical fact-finding occurred on two parallel tracks with appropriate staff from both the Regional Water Quality Control Board and UNOCAL. Policy discussions and decision making occur among upper-level management of UNOCAL and the RWQCB in monthly mediated policy meetings. The mediated joint fact-finding process was designed to help policymakers reach agreement on site characterization issues by working collaboratively to increase areas of technical certainty and jointly develop strategies to address areas of technical uncertainty.