(Courtesy of Kingfisher Times and Free Press)
The pipeline oil spill that occurred this week near the northwest Oklahoma town of Loyal wasn’t the first such incident involving equipment owned by Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline company.
This is the same company that was indicted last year in California for a 2015 oil pipeline rupture that fouled beaches near Santa Barbara. A company employee was also indicted for the May 6, 2015 incident where a two-foot-diameter underground pipeline broke near Refugio State Beach just west of Santa Barbara. Much of the oil spilled into the Pacific Ocean. The company initially estimated the spill at 21,000 gallons but later revised its figures to 140,000 gallons.
It’s also not the only legal fight involving Plains All American. The company’s investors filed suit in January against the firm’s general partner’s top officers and directors in Delaware. The suit seeks tens of millions of dollars in damages for the repair and recovery costs stemming from the $257 million spill in California.
What prompted the indictment of Plains All American was the discovery by investigators that the pipeline maintenance had been neglected and there was severe pipeline corrosion.
In the Oklahoma spill, an estimated 450-barrels of oil leaked from the Buffalo Cashion pipeline. The National Response Center has already listed “internal corrosion” as the likely cause of the leak that affected an estimated 70-acres of farmland.
The Buffalo Cashion line is part of more than 1,300 miles of pipeline operated by Plains All American in Oklahoma.
