Countywide : Mobil Oil Pleads Not Guilty in Spill

Mobil Oil Corp. faces a May 26 preliminary hearing after pleading not guilty Thursday at its arraignment on criminal charges stemming from last year’s crude oil spill that polluted the Santa Clara River.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge Candace Beason set the hearing date for Mobil, which is accused of two felony counts of illegal disposal of hazardous waste and two misdemeanor counts of polluting a waterway.

Mobil, the nation’s second largest oil company, faces a maximum penalty of $497,000 if convicted of the charges, which were filed last month by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

The preliminary hearing, also scheduled for Municipal Court, will determine if there is sufficient evidence to bring Mobil to trial in Superior Court on the criminal charges. Beason also set an April 27 pretrial hearing date.

The charges stem from the Jan. 31, 1991, rupture in Valencia of the leak-prone pipeline that brings crude oil from oil fields in Kern County to Mobil’s Torrance oil refinery.

An estimated 74,634 gallons of crude gushed from the pipeline and tainted a 15-mile stretch of the Santa Clara River, killing 186 birds and damaging the habitat of two endangered species, a bird and a fish.

The state attorney general’s office also is considering a multimillion-dollar civil damage suit against Mobil on behalf of state wildlife and water quality agencies.

Mobil is replacing the pipeline, which has failed repeatedly in recent years.

“We still contend that the action is unnecessary,” Mobil spokesman James Carbonetti said Thursday of the criminal charges. “We spent $10 million to clean it up.”