Firm Says No Contest to Major Gasoline Spill

Representatives of a pipeline company pleaded no contest this week to polluting state waters in connection with the spill of 467,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline from a ruptured pipeline in Tustin a year ago.

State Department of Fish and Game Warden Jan Yost, who issued the original citation against San Diego Pipeline Co. of Los Angeles, said the firm entered the plea Wednesday before William P. Hopkins in Central Orange County Municipal Court.

She said the gasoline flowed into a flood-control channel in Tustin, then into Peters Canyon and San Diego creeks, finally spilling into the upper end of Newport Bay.

The 10-inch pipe, running from Los Angeles to San Diego, spewed gasoline at the rate of 2,000 gallons per minute for more than one hour, Yost said, before cut-off valves were put into play.

The pollution killed everything in the waterways for a distance of 1 1/2 miles, she said, including shore birds such as egrets and herons, frogs, small fish and plants.

“It was one of the largest spills of its kind in the county,” Yost said.

The company has paid almost $2 million in cleanup work and $82,367 in fines and penalties since the November, 1986, spill, she added.

Hopkins fined the company $170, placed it on one year of informal probation, then ordered the following restitution payments for work done by various agencies and local governments:

The state Regional Water Quality Control Board, $29,256; Orange County Fire Department, $25,571; Department of Fish and Game, $19,889; the county Environmental Management Agency, $6,318; the county health department, $4,402; the City of Irvine, $3,663, and Tustin, $1,100.