In California’s wine valley, a cannabis company just got caught running 16 diesel generators to keep its operation alive. Not as backup power. Not during emergencies. As the main engine of the business.
On August 15, Central Coast Agriculture Inc. agreed to pay $620,000 to settle an environmental protection lawsuit with the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office. The civil complaint alleged the company used 100 to 500 kilowatt diesel engines to power refrigerated shipping containers full of cannabis and even a greenhouse, without permits and in violation of California’s Portable Engine Registration Program (PERP).
Santa Barbara County’s cannabis ordinance is stricter still. Diesel generators as primary power are banned in unincorporated areas except during outages. Yet for more than a year, these machines ran full-time, pumping exhaust into a valley known globally for grapes and soil.
The settlement directs $260,000 to the DA’s environmental enforcement unit, another $260,000 to local regulators, and $100,000 to the Refugio Road Trail Restoration Project through the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade. The company is now under permanent injunction to comply with air-quality laws.
A Different Case, Same Company, Same Pattern
This is not the first time Central Coast Agriculture has landed in court. In June 2024, the same company paid $1.3 million to the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District for violations at its cannabis manufacturing and extraction facility in Lompoc.
In 2020 alone, that facility emitted 135 tons of reactive organic compounds (ozone precursor gases) into the air, more than twice the annual emissions of every gas station in Santa Barbara County combined. The problem there was not diesel engines but solvents used in cannabis extraction, like butane and ethanol.
So in Buellton, it was generators. In Lompo,c it was solvents. Different technologies, same story. The same operator failing to comply with the basic rules that protect air …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
