Mobil Asked to Pay $233,000 More in Cleanup of Pipeline Spills

Mobil Oil will be asked to pay at least $233,000 more to cover the costs public agencies incurred to mop up oil spilled in Encino and Sherman Oaks by breaks in a Mobil pipeline in September, 1988, a Los Angeles deputy city attorney said Monday.

News of the bill surprised a Mobil Oil attorney, prompting him to seek a court hearing to review and possibly challenge the cleanup costs. Mobil does not intend to be treated like a cookie jar for the inflated costs of public agencies, attorney Max Gillam said.

The cost-review hearing, set for March 6, was granted Monday by Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Owen Kwong as the judge also sentenced Mobil to pay fines and penalty assessments of $4,500 to settle the oil company’s no contest plea to two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully allowing oil to be dumped into state waters--the Los Angeles River channel.

Mobil was originally hit by the city attorney’s office with a 12-count charge of illegal polluting. On Nov. 30, the company agreed to a plea bargain and 10 counts were dropped.

In addition to the fines, Kwong also ordered Mobil to pay the emergency response costs of public agencies that dealt with the company’s oil spills of Sept. 10 and Sept. 27, 1988.

It was during the sentencing session that Deputy City Atty. Vincent Sato disclosed that the city Fire Department was seeking $215,689 in costs and the state Department of Fish and Game was asking for another $17,810. Other public agencies may have even more cleanup bills for Mobil, Sato said.

Mobil already has paid $72,636 to cover the costs of three other city agencies--the Board of Public Works and departments of Transportation and Water and Power--involved in cleanup operations stemming from two separate oil spills that occurred when the company’s Bakersfield-to-Torrance pipeline ruptured, said Gillam, an attorney with the law firm of Latham & Watkins.

“I want to see the backup for these new claims. They say they have some magic formula” for computing the costs, he said. “But maybe they got them through astrology. I guess I’m pretty skeptical about their equations,” Gillam said.

To date, Mobil has paid or been ordered to pay $204,602, including payments to property owners and an $85,000 fine by the State Regional Water Quality Control Board. In addition to reimbursing public agencies, Mobil paid $12,916 to hire a private group to clean birds contaminated with oil and more than $4 million on other cleanup costs, Gillam said.

The first and more serious spill occurred in Encino on Sept. 10, 1988, pouring more than 130,000 gallons of crude oil into the Los Angeles city sewer system and the Los Angeles River. On Sept. 27, 1988, another 500 gallons spilled in Sherman Oaks as the company tested the pipeline to see if it was capable of being used again.

The Sept. 10 spill closed parts of Ventura Boulevard for two days and disrupted life in a 16-block area of Encino. Oil from this spill also affected at least 74 waterfowl, including mallards and Canada geese in Los Angeles River channel marshes, killing two dozen of the birds.

Oil was detected in the river as far away as Long Beach.

The oil company is seeking permission to replace, at a cost of $75 million, a 76-mile section of its pipeline that runs from its Kern County fields to its refinery in Torrance. This line--which runs through the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys--has experienced seven ruptures in the past 15 years.