A pipeline company has been ordered by a judge to pay more than $3.3 million dollars in fines and penalty assessments stemming from a 2015 oil spill on the Santa Barbara County coastline.
Last fall, a jury found Plains All-American Pipeline guilty of nine charges stemming from a pipeline rupture which led to a more than 140,000 gallon oil spill at Refugio State Beach.
In the court’s findings, a judge said that Plains knew or should have known its system was at risk of rupturing. The court still has to rule on restitution for victims of the spill.
