Plains All American fined $3.3M for California Oil Spill
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) —A California judge fined Plains All American Pipeline $3.35 million for a 2015 California coastal oil spill caused by the rupture of a corroded pipeline.
The fine was well short of the more than $1 billion in penalties prosecutors had sought. However, additional damages could be levied at a July restitution hearing.
Last year, a Santa Barbara County jury found the Houston-based company guilty of a felony count of failing to properly maintain its pipeline, as well as misdemeanor charges related to killing marine mammals and protected sea birds.
Plains apologized for the spill and paid for the cleanup. The company's 2017 annual report estimated costs from the spill at $335 million, not including lost revenues.
Federal inspectors found that Plains had made several preventable errors, failed to quickly detect the pipeline rupture and responded too slowly as oil flowed toward the ocean.
Plains operators working from a Texas control room more than 1,000 miles away had turned off an alarm that would have signaled a leak and, unaware a spill had occurred, restarted the hemorrhaging line after it had shut down, inspectors found.
"We take our responsibility to safely deliver energy resources very seriously, and we are committed to doing the right thing," the Houston-based firm said in a statement Thursday. "We are sorry that this release happened, and we have and will continue to work hard to re-earn the trust of area residents."
The spill crippled the local oil business because the pipeline was used to transport crude to refineries from seven offshore platforms, including three owned by Exxon Mobil that have been idle since the spill.
Plains has applied for permission to build a pipeline, which is opposed by conservation groups seeking to ban offshore drilling in the area.
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