Granada Hills Pipe Ruptures, Gushes Oil

An oil pipeline burst in Granada Hills Monday night, sending thousands of gallons of crude oil onto a residential street and then into storm drains, where it flowed for miles across the San Fernando Valley.

Oil gushing from the Mobil pipeline, estimated at 20,000 gallons per hour, was stopped by 8:45 p.m., but officials, an hour later, were still trying to limit the runoff as it flowed toward the ocean.

Paramedics responding to a 7:36 p.m. traffic accident first discovered the spill, which covered 50-foot-wide Woodley Avenue for 75 yards, said Jim Williamson, Los Angeles City Fire Department spokesman. The paramedics requested assistance, and 13 backup units responded, spreading chemical foam to neutralize the oil. The oil was leaking through a 15-foot-long jagged crack in Woodley just south of Nanette Street.

There was no immediate danger to nearby homes, officials said, and no evacuation was ordered. Two people were injured, neither critically, in the auto accident, which occurred when a car apparently slid on the oil and hit a tree. Another car slid in the oil shortly afterward with no injuries.

Officials were worried about environmental damage from the oil discharged from the 10-inch-diameter pipe. Firefighters asked the Los Angeles County Flood Control District to dam Bull Creek, the open drainage ditch in which much of the oil was flowing.

“We don’t want it going into the storm drains, because then it ends up in the ocean,” Williamson said.

By 10 p.m., the flow had spread four miles southward in Bull Creek through Granada Hills, past Parthenia Street, officials said. The flow was being monitored by a Fire Department helicopter.

Williamson said officials do not know how the pipeline burst or where the oil originated or was headed. He said the flow through the pipeline finally was halted by closing a valve near Magic Mountain in Valencia.

Firefighters expected to work through the night to clean up the sticky mess around the rupture. Although firefighters thought the flow was greater, a Mobil representative said it might be as low as 5,500 gallons, Williamson said.

“It pushed the street up and the oil was bubbling up and going down the street,” said Battalion Chief Frank Motheral, one of the first fire officials at the scene. “When we got here, it was really coming out.”

Reuben Allen was driving with his wife from their home nearby when their car slid into a curb as it passed through the oil. “I was going down the hill, when I felt like I hit a big hole and I just started sliding,” he said. “It’s a wonder we’re still in one piece.”