Amplify Energy Corporation (AEC), Beta Operating Company (BOC), and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Company (SPBPC) are the companies in charge of the Elly Oil Platform and San Pedro Bay Pipeline that lie off the Orange County, California coastline. The complaint for this class action alleges that systems providing warnings of oil spills were inadequate or ignored. According to the complaint, the slow recognition or response “turned what could have been a painful, but manageable event, into [a] marine environmental crisis.”
The class for this action is all persons or businesses that claim economic losses or damages to their occupations, businesses, or business property, located on the coast from Long Beach to Oceanside, California, as a result of the October 1-2 oil spill from the San Pedro Bay Pipeline, referred to as the Huntington Beach Oil Spill.
On Saturday, October 2, 2021, at 2:30 in the morning, an alarm sounded to indicate low pressure in the oil pipeline. However, the pipeline was not shut down until 6:01. By then, possibly as much as 130,000 gallons of crude oil had already been released, just four and a half miles from the beaches.
AEC did not notify the Coast Guard until 9:07. The complaint alleges, “What makes this failure [even] more alarming, many in the surrounding area recognized a problem long before” the companies involved did. People in the communities had noticed the smell the previous evening, and a commercial vessel reported the oil slick on the water. Satellites saw an “anomaly” at 7:00 in the evening, hours before the alarm even went off, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) notified the Coast Guard at 2:06, just before the alarm went off.
The complaint alleges, “The toxic crude oil covered the Huntington and Newport Beach coastline by end of day on Sunday” but the problem is still at its beginning, the complaint says, because the body of oil has broken up, with sections headed south to foul other waterways, fishing grounds, beaches, and other marine operations.
Tourism was a major source of income in the area, with people coming for the beaches, activities, marine and animal life, restaurants with fresh seafood, and so on. All of this has now been stopped or disrupted.
The complaint alleges that the oil spill was preventable. The bay was heavily trafficked, the complaint says, and the pipeline should have been buried.
The companies should also have had “a monitoring plan that could readily identify such an event in a short period of time…” Instead, the complaint alleges that there were only two means of detecting a spill, pressure and flow, as measured in the pipeline. “Simply put, [the companies’] monitoring system, manual and otherwise, was recklessly inept.”
Article Type: LawsuitTopic: Environmental
Most Recent Case Event
Huntington Beach Oil Spill Disaster and Inadequate Monitoring Complaint
October 14, 2021
Amplify Energy Corporation (AEC), Beta Operating Company (BOC), and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Company (SPBPC) are the companies in charge of the Elly Oil Platform and San Pedro Bay Pipeline that lie off the Orange County, California coastline. The complaint for this class action alleges that systems providing warnings of oil spills were inadequate or ignored. According to the complaint, the slow recognition or response “turned what could have been a painful, but manageable event, into [a] marine environmental crisis.”
Huntington Beach Oil Spill Disaster and Inadequate Monitoring ComplaintCase Event History
Huntington Beach Oil Spill Disaster and Inadequate Monitoring Complaint
October 14, 2021
Amplify Energy Corporation (AEC), Beta Operating Company (BOC), and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Company (SPBPC) are the companies in charge of the Elly Oil Platform and San Pedro Bay Pipeline that lie off the Orange County, California coastline. The complaint for this class action alleges that systems providing warnings of oil spills were inadequate or ignored. According to the complaint, the slow recognition or response “turned what could have been a painful, but manageable event, into [a] marine environmental crisis.”
Huntington Beach Oil Spill Disaster and Inadequate Monitoring Complaint