Federal officials say they’ve reached a settlement with a company which owns the crude oil pipeline which ruptured in Santa Barbara County in 2015, causing a more than 140,000 gallon oil spill. The deal calls for Plains All-American Pipeline to modify its national operations to implement safeguards to prevent future accidents. It also calls for the company to pay federal agencies more than $60 million dollars in reimbursement for costs, as well as penalties.
Federal investigators say the spill near Refugio State Beach was caused by the company’s failure to deal with corrosion to the pipeline. They say the company failed to have proper control room procedures in place, and it also didn’t handle its response to the accident properly.
The cleanup from the spill took months, with the company's total costs estimated to be in excess of $250 million dollars.
