Phillips 66 Indicted Over Los Angeles Refinery's Wastewater Discharges : DOJ -- OPIS
PSX
A federal grand jury on Wednesday handed down a six-count indictment against Phillips 66 for allegedly discharging "hundreds of thousands of gallons" of industrial wastewater from its Los Angeles refinery into the public sewer system and failing to report the violations, the Justice Department said on Thursday.
Phillips is charged with two counts of negligently violating the Clean Water Act and four counts of knowingly violating the Clean Water Act, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a news release.
According to the indictment, the Carson unit of the refinery unit on Nov. 24, 2020, discharged "industrial wastewater containing a concentration of oil and grease" that exceeded the permitted concentration by more than 300 times into the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts' sewer system for about 2.5 hours.
DOJ said the Carson facility also "failed to inform LACSD of its non-compliant industrial wastewater discharge."
"LACSD roughly estimated that the Phillips' Carson facility discharged about 310,000 gal of non-compliant industrial wastewater, which contained approximately 64,000 lb of oil and grease, to LACSD's sewer system," the department said.
Phillips' Los Angeles refinery, which is about 15 miles southeast of Los Angeles, includes the Carson and Wilmington facilities that are linked by pipelines.
According to the government's news release, Phillips' industrial wastewater pretreatment system process controls and practices were "inadequate to prevent or quickly address the non-compliant discharge."
The company in a statement said it "will continue its cooperation with the U.S. Attorney's office and is prepared to present its case in these matters in court. The company remains committed to operating safely and protecting the health and safety of our employees and the communities where we operate, " spokeswoman Slgi Jolissaint said in an email.
DOJ said LACSD in December 2020 issued multiple notices of violation to the company for the discharges and for failing to notify the agency.
A Phillips manager in January 2021 acknowledged the non-compliant discharge and said the company would "retrain operations personnel" on such situations and the procedure for notifying LACSD.
The department added that Phillips in February 2021 discharged about 480,000 gal of non-compliant industrial wastewater containing at least 33,700 lb of oil and grease into the sewer system.
LACSD a month later issued notices of violation to Phillips for "discharging industrial wastewater, which adversely affected an LACSD facility and for its failure to notify the LACSD about said wastewater discharge."
At that time, a Phillips manager at Carson wrote to the LACSD, acknowledging the non-compliant discharge and the company's failure to notify authorities that it had occurred.
DOJ said the company is expected to be arraigned in the coming weeks in a Los Angeles federal court.
If convicted of all charges, Phillips would face a maximum sentence of five years' probation on each count and up to $2.4 million in fines, according to the statement.
This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
--Reporting by Frank Tang, [email protected]; Editing by Jeff Barber, [email protected]
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-21-24 1643ET