Company charged for oil spill that fouled California beaches

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Texas pipeline company that spilled more than 140,000 gallons of crude oil on the California coast last year was indicted on dozens of criminal charges in the disaster that closed popular beaches and killed sea lions and birds, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Plains All American Pipeline and one of its employees face 46 counts of state law violations in the May 19, 2015, spill that initially went undetected when a severely corroded 2-foot-wide pipe ruptured and oil began pouring onto a pristine beach on the Santa Barbara coastline and flowing out to sea.

The Plains rupture was the largest coastal oil spill in the U.S. since the BP's Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico six years ago killed 11 rig workers and spewed millions of gallons of crude.

BP settled federal criminal charges by pleading guilty to 12 felony counts and two misdemeanors and reached a $20 billion settlement with the Justice Department for environmental damages.

Many local residents didn't think Plains took the spill seriously even as a representative apologized at regular press conferences and the company sent postcards across the county to apologize "for the inconvenience," said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center.

Multiple class-action lawsuits from landowners, fishermen and business owners who say the spill crippled a thriving tourism industry are still pending.