The operator of a pipeline that spilled more than 140,000 gallons of crude oil in Santa Barbara past year “failed on multiple levels to prevent, detect and respond to the incident”, a federal pipeline administrator said Thursday.
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Plains All American Pipeline also didn’t have adequate systems in place to signal there was a major leak in the pipeline running near the Santa Barbara County coast, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said in its final investigation report.
“PHMSA’s findings indicate that the proximate or direct cause of the Line 901 failure was external corrosion that thinned the pipe wall to a level where it ruptured suddenly and released heavy crude oil”, the agency said in its Thursday report.
The report came two days after Plains was indicted in California on 46 state criminal charges stemming from the oil spill, which environmental groups have seized on as demonstrating the hazards posed by an aging USA oil and gas transportation infrastructure.
The report was issued on the one-year anniversary of the spill and just two days after Plains was indicted in Santa Barbara County Superior Court on 46 criminal counts, including four felonies of polluting state waters and three dozen misdemeanors of harming wildlife.
“Plains believes neither the company nor any of its employees engaged in any criminal behavior at any time in connection with this accident, and that criminal charges are unwarranted”, the company’s release said.
Anthony Foxx, U.S. Transportation Secretary, said the investigation revealed that “a number of preventable errors led to this incident, and that the company’s failures in judgment, including inadequate assessment of the safety of this line and faulty planning made matters worse”.
Beaches along the scenic coast nearby were closed two weeks shy of Memorial Day weekend as an oil plume spread nine miles into the Pacific Ocean.
The rupture occurred at the same time a pump elsewhere in the pipeline shut down unexpectedly and an operator in the Midland, Texas, control room, dealing with the pump problem, ordered alarms that would have provided earlier notice of the breach turned off, the report states.
A 41-year-old company employee who worked as an environmental and regulatory compliance specialist faces three charges. Plains later upped the estimate to about 142,000 gallons, though federal regulators said 123,000 gallons were released.
“The discrepancies between the tool measurement and the actual corrosion were as much as 40 percent in the area where Line 901 failed”, the PHMSA said.
PHMSA said its report will serve as the basis for potential further action against the company. Plains said there’s no timeline for restarting it.
Now that PHMSA has concluded its investigation, the agency will focus on possible enforcement actions, and could impose civil penalties or refer the case for federal criminal prosecution.
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According to PHMSA’s investigation, the system used to detect leaks did not warn the staff about the release and the operator did not perform the necessary emergency shutdown and leak detection alarm training.
