A sentencing hearing is scheduled for April after a Santa Barbara judge denied several post-trial motions from Plains All American Pipeline, which was convicted of charges related to the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill.
Jurors delivered guilty verdicts for nine counts including one felony, “the crime of knowingly discharging oil, or reasonably should have known that its actions would cause the discharge of oil, into the waters of the state.”
Plains asked the court to reconsider convictions on some of the charges, including the felony count, or to grant a new trial, and Judge James Herman denied those motions.
“There is evidence from digs showing under calls of corrosion in ILI runs and evidence of Plains’ awareness of external corrosion,” Herman wrote in his ruling, referring to witness testimony and evidence from the trial.
“That fact that federal standards did not require certain analyses or remediation does not mean that Plains should not have reasonably known of the dangerously compromised condition of its pipe.”
Herman wrote that Plains knew its 20-plus-years-old pipe was vulnerable to external corrosion and the in-line inspection tool was “inaccurate” in measuring the depth of erosions in the pipe walls.
The spot that ruptured and caused the spill was 89-percent eroded from its original thickness, a post-spill investigation found, while the most recent inspection had listed it at a 40-percent loss. Plains did not have the results of that latest inspection at the time of the spill.
“As the People argued, given the inaccuracy of the ILI’s measurements, a pipeline rupture and release of oil was not a matter of if but a matter of when,” Herman wrote. “To the extent there was a conflict of evidence relative to ordinary standard of care, resolving that conflict was a jury question.”
Sentencing is scheduled for April 25 in Herman’s courtroom in Superior Court in Santa Barbara.
Since the company itself was charged in criminal court, not individuals, the sentence likely will involve substantial fines.
Plains’ two Santa Barbara County oil and gas transportation pipelines have been shut down since the May 2015 crude oil spill from Line 901 along the Gaviota Coast, and the company is pursing a replacement pipeline project.
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
