SAN FERNANDO : Katz Seeks State Input on Pipeline

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) has asked the State Fire Marshal’s Office whether it is within the state’s power to require an oil company to remove a controversial pipeline from beneath a school playground in San Fernando.

In a letter dated Friday to Nancy Wolfe, chief of the marshal’s Pipeline Safety Division, Katz also implored the agency to “adhere to standards exceeding the minimum required by law” when it subjects the earthquake-damaged Four Corners Pipeline to tests.

The pipeline broke in eight places during the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake, including a fracture that fueled a large fire beside San Fernando’s O’Melveny Elementary School. Since the spill, public officials have demanded that a segment of the pipeline beneath the school’s playground be relocated, and others have demanded it be shut down permanently.

But officials have been stymied by questions of which government entities have jurisdiction over the line, which stretches 130 miles from Kern County to refineries in the South Bay. Both the city of Los Angeles and San Fernando have franchise agreements with the pipeline company, but neither is certain it has the power to stop the flow of oil or demand that the line be moved.

In a letter sent this week to the city of San Fernando, Wolfe reminded officials that federal and state law give her office exclusive jurisdiction over safe operation of oil pipelines.

Wolfe said Friday she was unsure if those responsibilities gave her office power to move the line. “This is one of those things that fall into a gray area and we would have to investigate the matter,” she said. “The regulations and the law aren’t specific in this area.”

Katz said that he wants the pipe moved from the schoolyard “at a minimum” and was willing to try to find a safer place for the line.

“It’s got to go somewhere--it won’t just disappear,” Katz said in an interview. “We at least have to make sure it’s as safe as it possibly can be.”

Meanwhile, a San Fernando City Council member also is drafting a proposal asking the State Fire Marshal’s Office to tighten its scrutiny of the line. Councilman Doude Wysbeek said Friday he expects to present his proposal during the council’s 7 p.m. meeting Monday.

“I’m more concerned with the whole system of testing, and that after an accident occurs, (whether) they’re not willing to go the extra mile for the public,” Wysbeek said Friday.

The Fire Marshal’s Office has promised to require a series of tests before ruling on the safety of the pipeline after repairs are made, and will order the owner to enact a program to replace aging pipes joined by archaic welds no longer considered up to modern industry standards.

Representatives of the company, which is a subsidiary of Arco, have said they are willing to move the line from the schoolyard and will cooperate with the Fire Marshal’s Office.