Disc jockey sues pipeline operator
Lawsuit says oil spill cost him business
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. – A disc jockey filed the first federal lawsuit against the operator of a pipeline that leaked up to 144,000 gallons of oil into waters off Southern California.
Amplify Energy – and the Coast Guard – face intense scrutiny for delayed responses that might have aggravated the disaster.
In the lawsuit, Peter Moses Gutierrez claims his company performs events frequently on the beachfront and will lose a “substantial amount of his DJ business” as a result of the spill and resulting closure of the beach. Gutierrez says he has been or will be exposed to toxins as a result of the spill.
Gutierrez seeks unspecified damages. Lawyer Greg Coleman said his firm’s lawyers are working with Huntington Beach and surrounding communities to protect their legal rights.
“With this lawsuit, we hope to help them clean up their beaches and force the fossil fuel industry to clean up its act,” Coleman said.
The suit names Beta Offshore, a subsidiary of Amplify Energy. The company didn’t shut down the pipeline for more than three hours after being alerted, according to federal regulators.
Amplify personnel “received a lowpressure alarm” at 2:30 a.m. Saturday on the pipeline that signaled possible failure, U.S. Transportation Department safety regulators wrote in a letter to the company. At 6 a.m. – more than three hours later – the pipeline was shut down, the letter states.
The letter from the department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration notes it took more than six hours for the company to report the spill to the federal National Response Center, the designated federal point of contact for reporting all discharges into the environment.
Amplify’s spill-response plan calls for immediate notification in the event of a spill. CEO Martyn Willsher insisted the company wasn’t aware of the spill until a sheen on the water was detected at 8:09 a.m. Saturday.
A Coast Guard official acknowledged the agency was alerted to a sheen on the water Friday night but did little until the next day.
Rear Adm. Brian Penoyer said Tuesday that the agency did not have enough corroborating evidence when the call came in and was hindered by darkness and a lack of technology. Penoyer said reports of oil sheens are fairly common at major seaports.
“In hindsight, it seems obvious, but they didn’t know that at that time,” he said.
The Oiled Wildlife Care Network reported that through Tuesday, two birds have been found dead and 13 have been recovered alive. Cleanup crews eased through delicate wetlands, scooping gobs of oil from the shallow waters.