Company charged in crude oil spill that fouled beaches
By Brian Melley, Associated Press, Updated May 18, 2016 2:01 pm
FILE – In this May 21, 2015, file photo, an oil-covered bird flaps its wings amid at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta, Calif. Plains All American Pipeline said in a statement Tuesday, May 17, 2016, that a California grand jury has indicted the company and one of its employees in connection with the pipeline break.
A Texas pipeline company responsible for spilling more than 140,000 gallons of crude oil on the California coast last year was indicted on dozens of criminal charges in the disaster that closed popular beaches and killed sea lions and birds, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Plains All American Pipeline and one of its employees face 46 counts of state law violations in the May 19, 2015, spill that initially went undetected until oil began pouring onto a pristine beach on the Santa Barbara coastline and into the ocean.
Initial investigations by federal regulators found the 2-foot-wide underground pipeline was severely corroded where it broke on land.
Plains is charged with four felony counts of spilling oil in state waters and could face fines of up to $2.8 million if convicted of all the charges, prosecutors said.
“The carelessness of Plains All American harmed hundreds of species and marine life off Refugio Beach,” California Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement. “This conduct is criminal, and today’s charges serve as a powerful reminder of the consequences that flow from jeopardizing the well-being of our ecosystems and public health.”
Plains said the spill was an accident and believes no criminal behavior occurred.
“We will demonstrate that the charges have no merit and represent an inappropriate attempt to criminalize an unfortunate accident,” the company said.
The spill came two weeks before Memorial Day weekend last year and forced the state to close popular beaches as an oil sheen spread over miles of the Pacific Ocean. More than 300 dead animals, including pelicans and sea lions, were found in the aftermath, and tar balls from the spill drifted more than 100 miles away to Los Angeles beaches.
The Houston company faces three dozen misdemeanor counts of harming wildlife.
A Plains employee and the company also are accused of failing to report the spill quickly enough to state emergency officials. An investigation by federal regulators found that it took hours for Plains to recognize what happened and notify officials.
A worker removes oil in 2015 at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta. An underground pipe, owned by Plains All American Pipeline of Texas, spewed 140,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific. Jae C. Hong / Associated Press 2015
Associated Press Published 3:12 pm, Tuesday, May 17, 2016
WASHINGTON — The speeding Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia last year, killing eight people, most likely ran off the rails because the engineer was distracted by word of a nearby commuter train getting hit by a rock, federal investigators concluded Tuesday.
The National Transportation Safety Board also put some of the blame on the railroad industry’s decades-long delay in installing Positive Train Control, equipment that can automatically slow trains that are going over the speed limit.
Engineer Brandon Bostian was apparently so focused on the rock-throwing he heard about over the radio that he lost track of where he was and accelerated full-throttle to 106 mph as he went into a sharp curve with a 50 mph limit, investigators said at an NTSB hearing convened to pinpoint the cause of the May 12, 2015, tragedy. About 200 people aboard the Washington-to-New York train were injured.
“He went, in a matter of seconds, from distraction to disaster,” NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said.
Bostian, who has been suspended without pay since the crash for speeding, did not attend the hearing. He and his lawyer did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment.
Had Positive Train Control been in use along the stretch of track, “we would not be here today,” said Ted Turpin, an NTSB investigator.
“Unless PTC is implemented soon,” NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart warned, “I’m very concerned that we’re going to be back in this room again, hearing investigators detail how technology that we have recommended for more than 45 years could have prevented yet another fatal rail accident.”
Amtrak noted that Positive Train Control is already in place on most of its portion of the Northeast Corridor and that it has also installed inward-facing video cameras on locomotives.
The problem of people throwing rocks at trains is so common that train crews have a term for it: “getting rocked.” But it is a danger railroads are almost powerless to stop. No one was ever arrested in the rock-throwing in Philadelphia.
Investigators said they believe Bostian was accelerating because he thought he had already passed the sharp Frankford Junction curve. After the curve, the tracks open up into a straightaway where the speed limit is 110 mph.
During the investigation, authorities ruled out cell phone use on Bostian’s part, as well as drugs or alcohol.
By Andrew Christie, Chapter Director, May 16, 2016
For a moment today, as the SLO County Planning Commission was getting ready for its lunch break, it looked as though sanity might prevail.
As they commenced deliberations on the Phillips 66 oil-by-rail project after six meetings pondering the issue, receiving County Planning staff’s detailed recommendation for denial of the project, the testimony of the County’s air quality and public health officials and the comments of thousands of California citizens, along with the comments of dozens of cities, counties and school districts all urging denial, it seemed like the facts, science, the law and the fundamentals of good planning would be enough to get the message across to at least a majority of the County’s planning commissioners: You must deny this project.
Commissioner Eric Meyer (Supervisor Hill’s appointee) sensibly asked: “What are the benefits to this county? We’re accepting risk with no reward.“
Commissioner Ken Topping (Supervisor Gibson’s appointee) noted that while it’s possible with some projects to attempt to balance competing interests, “it was difficult to accept a compromise approach in this particular case” and that as damning at the project’s Environmental Impact Report is, “the EIR understates the impacts that could occur.”
But it was not to be.
Commissioner Don Campbell (Supervisor Arnold’s appointee) cited his fervent allegiance to the unimpeded flow of industrial commerce.
Commissioner Jim Harrison (Supervisor Compton’s appointee) basically said that accidents happen and not enough people have died in train derailments to make this an issue of concern. He had nothing to say about the significant environmental impacts described at length in the Environmental Impact Report.
Commissioner Jim Irving (Supervisor Mecham’s appointee) essentially said it doesn’t matter what the Planning Commission decides because the case will probably go to the California Supreme Court as there is disagreement on the question of whether federal regulation of the transport of freight by rail means the County is not allowed to fully assess the impacts of an oil train project when considering a permit. (Worth pointing out: that disagreement is fundamentally between oil companies pushing oil train projects and California’s Attorney General,who has unequivocally stated not only that a local government may consider all of an oil train project’s impacts, it must do so, as “to turn a blind eye to the most serious of the Project’s environmental impacts, merely because they flow from federally-regulated rail operations, would be contrary to both state and federal law.”) In the rest of his comments, Irving made it clear that he disagreed with the Attorney General and the County’s legal counsel and agreed with the oil companies.
Harrison contributed the single most mystifying comment of the day when he claimed, in reference to the residents of homes adjacent to the site where the rail spur would go and are vocally protesting the project, “This project was there before they moved there,” so they should have known about its impacts – evidently confusing the existing refinery, which nobody is complaining about, with a project that has not been approved or built and had not been proposed when residents bought their homes.
A close runner-up for most mystifying comment was Commissioner Irving. When it became clear in the course of his remarks that he was going to vote to approve the project, he was asked by Commissioner Meyer what overriding considerations he saw as justifying approval. Legally, if the commission approves a project with significant environmental impacts, it must state that despite the unavoidable and significant impacts the project will inflict on residents and the environment, the County is going to permit it because public benefits from the project outweigh those detrimental impacts — hence, an overriding consideration. In response, Irving went back to his interpretation of federal preemption, replying: “The county sets goals but can’t do anything to meet its own goals…that in itself is a statement of overriding consideration.” (Again: “overriding considerations” refers to the benefits a project will confer upon the community that outweigh its negative impacts.)
On September 22, County staff will do as they were told today: Reverse their recommendation for denial and come back to the Planning Commission with some kind of findings that Campbell, Harrison and Irving can use as a basis for a vote to approve the project. The public will be allowed to weigh in on those proposed conditions and overriding considerations. What form those could possibly take, and how those three commissioners will fare in the struggle to find a legal basis for the approval of this project, are two very good questions. It is bound to be a riveting discussion. The lipstick is approaching the pig, but there’s a chance that the outcome may not be preordained.
Long before that — at 6 p.m. on May 18, at the SLO City/County Library, 995 Palm Street, SLO — all concerned residents are invited to get together with the activists who have been organizing the opposition to this project and have a discussion about next steps and what’s needed to restore environmental sanity. Hope to see you there.
“Whatever God May Bring”: Albany ‘Break Free’ Protest Against Fracking, Bomb Trains
By Zach Roberts • Tuesday, May 17, 2016 – 11:39
On May 14, thousands of people around the world joined together for marches, rallies and civil disobedience against dirty energy. While their specific causes may have ranged from stopping pipelines to preventing crude oil “bomb trains,” the unifying idea was to ‘break free’ from fossil fuels.
According to organizers, 2,000 people attended the Break Free Albany rally that featured speeches from different groups, such as Iris Marie Bloom of Protecting Our Waters.
As one of the final speakers at the rally she spoke about the Pilgrim Pipeline but in general the cause for the action, “We are all here to protect our climate, because the oil bomb trains are bad for climate, Bakken oil extraction is bad for climate… From the beginning — the cradle, the Bakken Shale, the tar sands — to the grave, Philadelphia refineries, other refineries, and the end use… we got to stop it all!”
Moving from Lincoln Park, the rally took to the streets in a planned march to the Port of Albany.
The first stop along the way was a low-income housing development which shared a back yard with a defacto “bomb train” parking lot. According to activists speaking at the protest the oil cars sit and idle for hours within yards of children’s bedrooms. The road that the marchers were standing on and blocking was also an oil transportation route used regularly by trucks to get to and from the port.
Carolyn McLaughlin, president of the Albany Common Council, demanded that people in Washington listen to the marchers:
“We have to make sure the black wall of environmental injustice does not return down here to Ezra Prentice… the people of Ezra Prentice and all along these tracks deserve better, we demand better, we will not take no for an answer.”
Moving parallel to the tracks, the march moved to its final destination, a road crossing that allowed the activists to set up a stage and prevent railroad cars from passing through. Music, dancing and speakers filled the small stage, along with an amplified audio set-up powered by a solar panel.
Finishing out the evening’s speakers was actor and activist James Cromwell who spoke to DeSmog:
“Even though we have a ban on fracking in New York, the governor and the legislators didn’t see fit to ban the use of fracked products. So now what we have is the build-out of hydrofracking infrastructure, pipelines, compressors, metering stations. This commits us for the next 30 to 40 years to fossil fuels. It cannot happen, we will not have a planet.”
To the march organizers’ surprise, the Albany police allowed the activists to stay long past their agreed upon permit — refusing to arrest anyone for occupying the tracks.
So the Break Free organizers decided to try to build an encampment. Immediately they set to work getting rope, tarps and other necessities like cinder blocks to make large tents for people to stay under as the weather forecast called for heavy rain.
The police allowed the now occupiers to build their tents with many warnings that any ‘structure’ would be taken down. 15-minute warnings expanded as organizers negotiated with police — but the police were standing firm.
Joking with one of the cops, I asked: “You’re just waiting until the rain starts to take the tents down… aren’t you?” The officer responded with a smirk, “Whatever God may bring.”
God brought torrential rain and wind.
And then the police swooped in. With activists singing and locking arms, the police aggressively, but with care not to harm anyone, ripped the tarps from their place and hauled them off in vehicles so that they couldn’t be used again.
Thankfully for the protesters, the rain slowed soon after, and conversation turned to figuring out next steps. After a time debating specifics, it was decided that they would stay and try to make it through the night without tents, laying on the railroad tracks with only cardboard and tarps to cover them from the weather.
By the time I left at 11pm, they were still there, sending out parties to gather supplies of dry clothing, food and whatever else they might need to make it through the night.
