A Long Beach pipeline company has been charged with causing a massive oil spill that polluted the Dominguez Channel and Port of Los Angeles in Wilmington, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Crimson Pipeline Management Inc. faces a 61 misdemeanor count complaint that alleges the company and its operators "unlawfully caused, allowed, permitted, and contributed to the discharge of large quantities of oil into the city's storm drain system," Los Angeles City Attorney's Office spokesman Frank Mateljan said.
The complaint alleges the company, including its president Larry Alexander and other officials, failed to report the spill in a timely manner.
Alexander was not immediately available for comment.
The pipeline breach was discovered Dec. 21, 2010 when when significant amounts of oil seeped into the Dominguez Channel during a storm.
Investigators gathered oil samples and identified a hydrocarbon "fingerprint" that determined it was consistent with the product shipped trough the "Youngstown Lateral" crude oil pipeline located along the Alameda Corridor right-of-way between Leeds Avenue and Alameda Street in Wilmington, prosecutors said.
Port of Long Beach documents online indicate the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Fish and Game and U.S. Coast Guard contained the oil, investigated and did the immediate cleanup.
The California Department of Fish and Game and the Los Angeles Watershed Protection
Division discovered a gash in the pipeline casing, a protective piping that surrounds the oil pipeline, Mateljan said.The gash was wrapped and the pipe was pulled out of the ground in October, Mateljan said.
The agencies have recovered more than 1,000 gallons of pure crude oil and more than 290,000 gallons of contaminated wastewater during the cleanup.
The EPA has since installed a system designed to capture oil that reaches the storm drain system during future storms, Mateljan said.
Port of Long Beach documents indicate that in the initial months following the spill, the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority allocated up to $1.7 million to fund the initial cleanup and other expenses.
The criminal complaint lists the defendants as Crimson Pipeline Management, Inc.; Crimson Resource Management; Crimson Pipeline Loop; Crimson Energy, LLC.; Crimson Midstream, LLC.; Crimson Property Management, LLC.; Alexander; Mike Romley, Crimson Pipeline operations manager Pipeline; and Tracy Wilkinson, a field supervisor.
If convicted, the company officials could be sent to jail for up to 36 years, prosecutors said.
larry.altman@dailybreeze.com
Follow Larry Altman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/larryaltman
Source: http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_19640101?source=rss_emailed
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