SAN FERNANDO : Pipeline Outside City’s Authority

The San Fernando City Council has no authority to prevent crude oil from flowing again through the controversial Four Corners Pipeline, which ruptured during the Northridge earthquake, the state fire marshal’s office has said.

That declaration, in a letter received by city officials Monday, effectively limits city action regarding the pipeline, which runs through San Fernando, including beneath the playground of O’Melveny Elementary School.

Only about a mile of the 130-mile line, which connects Kern County oil fields with South Bay refineries, passes through San Fernando.

A quake-related rupture beside the playground, just outside the city boundaries, fueled a fire that seriously burned a man and charred 17 cars and a house on Wolfskill Street.

The line also ruptured on a portion that passes through San Fernando itself.

The council resolved earlier this month to tell Four Corners to stop operating the line until the city had a full report on the incident, and not to resume pumping until the company participated in a public hearing. But neither action appears to be within the panel’s legal powers, according to the letter.

“The purpose of this letter is not to provide you with a lengthy lecture on why the City of San Fernando cannot regulate the safety of Line 1” of the Four Corners Pipeline Co., wrote Nancy Wolfe, chief of the state Fire Marshal’s Pipeline Safety Division.

The intent, she wrote, is to assure that her office “is sincerely interested in the physical safety and mental well-being of the residents and will not permit (Four Corners Pipeline Co.) to begin pumping on Line 1 unless we are assured that the line will be safely operated.”

San Fernando City Administrator Mary Strenn said Monday that she was not surprised at the content of the letter.

“I think we had a concern as far as jurisdiction, that there would be a body higher than us,” said Strenn.

Although the pipeline runs entirely within the state of California, federal law and court cases have determined that the transport of oil affects interstate commerce, and therefore is constitutionally protected against interference by local authorities, Wolfe said. Federal law further says that a state can take over federal jurisdiction if it adopts laws as strict as federal regulations, as California has.

That puts the state fire marshal in position as sole authority over the line, Wolfe said.

Meanwhile, Four Corners officials say they are willing to relocate the pipeline, provided they can find a place for it and get the necessary permits and agreements.

But neither the San Fernando City Council, nor Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, whose district surrounds the city, thus far have expressed a willingness to accept the part of the line now beneath the schoolyard.