"A California jury on Friday found the Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline company guilty on criminal charges of fouling state waters and harming wildlife in a major oil spill three years ago along the Pacific shoreline near Santa Barbara.
The verdict closed a chapter in the state’s bid to hold Plains All American criminally responsible for an oil spill that ranked as the largest in more than four decades to hit the energy-rich but ecologically sensitive coast northwest of Los Angeles.
The spill, linked to the deaths of hundreds of sea birds and marine mammals, occurred when an underground pipeline badly worn by corrosion ruptured along a coastal highway west of Santa Barbara on May 19, 2015, sending crude oil gushing onto the shore of Refugio State Beach and into the Pacific."
Steve Gorman and Gary McWilliams report for Reuters September 7, 2018.
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