THREE US senators are raising concerns about a Texas-based oil company’s “insufficient” response to a pipeline failure last week that released thousands of gallons of crude into the ocean, fouling the Santa Barbara County coastline.
In a letter sent on Thursday, May 28 to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) criticized Plains All American Pipeline for their sluggish response in detecting and reporting the Tuesday, May 19 spill from its oil line near Refugio State Beach.
“We need answers about why this happened, why the response was insufficient and what can be done to prevent another tragic spill like this from happening in the future,” the senators wrote in a joint letter.
Plains All American Pipeline workers detected “anomalies” in the 11-mile oil pipeline at 11:30am, and confirmed the failure on-site at 1:30pm. They reported the spill to the National Response Center just before 3:00pm, according to the letter.
“Based on this timeline, we are concerned that Plains Pipeline may not have detected this spill or reported it to federal officials as quickly as possible, and that these delays could have exacerbated the extent of the damage to the environment,” the senators said, asking why it took two hours for Plains Pipeline to visually confirm the existence of a release of oil.
The letter also expressed concern that the ruptured pipeline lacked an automatic shutoff valve that could have detected a loss in pressure, and decreased the amount of oil released.
Among other requests, the senators asked for detailed information on the company’s oil spill response plans, the timeline of its response and the line’s inspection history. They also want to know whether federal regulators have the legal authority to require Plains Pipeline to install automatic or remote shutoff valves on the line as it is repaired.
The oil company defended its response to the massive crude spill in a statement.
“In a real event, no one is fully satisfied with the speed of response,” said Meredith Matthews, a Plains Pipeline spokeswoman. “Upon confirming the release, we immediately activated our emergency response plan and marshaled critical resources to the scene, scaling up those resources quickly as we better understood the cleanup requirements.”
Plains Pipeline is conducting an internal review of its response, Matthews said.
A timeline provided by Plains Pipeline officials the day after the rupture indicated that the pipeline had been experiencing problems throughout the morning of May 19.
Mechanical problems at the Las Flores pumping station caused the pipeline to shut down at 10:45am, Rick McMichael, the company’s director of pipeline operations, told reporters last week. The pumps were restarted at 10:55am, but a different pump along the line failed at 11:15am, he said.
An operator at a control center in Midland, Texas, shut down the pipeline again at 11:30am after detecting a drop in pressure, McMichael said. An “odor” was reported to the company at 12:30pm and a company official confirmed the leak at 1:30pm.
At a news conference before the lawmakers’ letter was released, Plains Pipelines officials apologized for the spill.
“We will not leave until the job is completed,” said Patrick Hodgins, senior director of safety and security with Plains Pipelines.
The senators’ letter came as federal regulators announced that the oil company’s employees had removed the failed section of pipeline for testing following an excavation that took several days.
The 50-foot broken section of pipe will be taken to an independent metallurgical laboratory in Ohio.
The pipeline, known as Line 901, released up to 101,000 gallons of crude with an estimated 21,000 gallons of oil flowing downhill from the spill site through a culvert, under the 101 Freeway and into the Pacific.
Line 901 transports crude oil from Las Flores to Gaviota, and throughout refineries in Southern California. It remains shut down while federal pipeline regulators investigate the cause of the failure, both on-site and at the company’s control room in Texas.
The major spill has closed several miles of beaches on the Gaviota Coast near Santa Barbara while cleanup teams try to remove oil from the rocks, sand and the ocean surface. Officials said 18 oil-stricken birds and 10 marine mammals have died as a result of the spill.
The day after the spill, Plains Pipeline officials said about 130 personnel were working as fast as they could on the clean-up response. By Thursday, nearly 1,200 workers were on scene, though not all were involved in the clean-up effort.
On Wednesday, May 27, the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Coast Guard ordered Plains Pipeline to clean the area under requirements of the federal Clean Water Act.
In their letter, the senators also criticized the cleanup response efforts, writing that “authorities may not have fully utilized trained responders from local agencies and delayed training for volunteers.
“We are concerned that insufficient preparation may have slowed down the response effort,” the senators wrote.
Volunteers did not receive the four hours of safety training required by the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration until Monday, May 25, few days after the spill, and did not begin assisting in the clean up until the next day, officials said.
Thomas Cullen, the administrator in charge of the administrator of the California Office of Spill Prevention and Response, acknowledged the slow volunteer training effort in an interview. “It was not enough, we understand that,” he said, as a group of around 30 volunteers cleaned Goleta Beach of small tar balls.
“Refugio and El Capitan State Beaches will remain until at least June 18th,” said Eric Hjelstrom, state parks superintendent for the Santa Barbara area. “We have no way of knowing exactly when this clean-up will end.” (With reports from Los Angeles Times)
