LOS ANGELES — The pipeline that leaked thousands of gallons of oil on the California coast was the only pipe of its kind in the county not required to have an automatic shut-off valve because of a court fight nearly three decades ago, a county official said.
The original owner of the pipeline skirted the Santa Barbara County requirement by successfully arguing in court in the late 1980s that it should be subject to federal oversight because the pipeline is part of an interstate network, said Kevin Drude, deputy director of the county’s Energy and Minerals Division. Auto shut-off valves are not required by federal regulators.
“It’s the only major pipeline that doesn’t have auto shut-off,” Drude said. “For us, it’s routine.”
Federal regulators are investigating the cause of Tuesday’s leak that spilled up to 105,000 gallons of crude oil from an underground pipe into a culvert and as much as 21,000 gallons into the ocean at Refugio State Beach.
The spill killed untold numbers of fish, a few pelicans.
Plains All American Pipeline was still draining the pipe and trying to locate the leak Friday.
Federal regulators ordered the company to remove the damaged section and send it to a lab for tests on the metal, along with a series of other steps before it could resume pumping oil through the pipe to inland refineries.
