LOS ANGELES — The pipeline that leaked thousands of gallons of oil on the California coast was the only pipe of its kind in the county not required to have an automatic shut-off valve because of a court fight nearly three decades ago, a county official said.
The original owner of the pipeline skirted the Santa Barbara County requirement by successfully arguing in court in the late 1980s that it should be subject to federal oversight because the pipeline is part of an interstate network, said Kevin Drude, deputy director of the county’s Energy and Minerals Division. Auto shut-off valves are not required by federal regulators.
“It’s the only major pipeline that doesn’t have auto shut-off,” Mr. Drude said. “For us, it’s routine.”
Federal regulators are investigating the cause of Tuesday’s leak that spilled up to 105,000 gallons of crude oil from an underground pipe into a culvert and as much as 21,000 gallons into the ocean at Refugio State Beach. The spill killed untold numbers of fish, a few pelicans and mired other birds, sea lions and at least one elephant seal in the muck.
Plains All American Pipeline was still draining the pipe and trying to locate the leak Friday. Federal regulators ordered the company to remove the damaged section and send it to a lab for tests on the metal, along with a series of other steps before it could resume pumping oil through the pipe to inland refineries.
Senate approves stop-gap to extend funding for highways
WASHINGTON –– Congress voted to extend federal funds for highways and mass-transit programs through July while lawmakers work on a longer-term financing plan.
The Senate’s voice vote early Saturday followed House passage Tuesday of the measure, which will go to President Barack Obama for his signature. The Highway Trust Fund’s current authority to reimburse states for transportation spending is set to expire May 31, at the start of the summer construction season.
Before the vote, second-ranking Senate Democrat Richard J. Durbin of Illinois called on lawmakers to come up with a longer-term plan to finance the nation’s transportation infrastructure.
“In this 60 days, it is time for this Congress to act,” Mr. Durbin said.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said earlier this week he would rather extend the program through at least the end of the year.
Lawmakers disagree on how to pay for a longer extension, and many oppose raising the federal gasoline tax that provides most of the money for the trust fund.
Water lost in Calif. after dam vandalized
SAN FRANCISCO — Some 50 million gallons of water were lost after an act of vandalism damaged an inflatable dam near San Francisco, the local Oakland Tribune newspaper reported on Friday.
The loss comes as the state is in its fourth year of a devastating drought that has prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to impose the state's first-ever mandatory cutbacks in urban water use, up to 36 percent in some communities.
Alameda County Water District officials told the newspaper that the agency reported the incident, which caused the water to run into the San Francisco Bay, to police around 11:30 a.m. on Thursday.
“This is a very significant loss of water under any circumstances, and more so in the drought conditions we are experiencing,” water district general manager Robert Shaver told the newspaper. “It is an utterly senseless, destructive and wasteful thing to do.”
Washington man exonerated
WASHINGTON — A Superior Court judge exonerated a Washington man who spent 28 years in prison for murder, the fifth District of Columbia man to be cleared since 2009 after being convicted in connection with flawed FBI forensic testimony.
Judge Laura Cordero on Friday declared Cleveland Wright, 56, innocent of murdering William Horn, a floral shop worker, in an early morning robbery in July 1978.
“The Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Wright did not commit the crimes of first-degree murder while armed, first-degree felony murder, and armed robbery of Mr. Horn, of which he was convicted in this case,” Judge Cordero wrote in a 14-page opinion.
Temple chairman loses post
PHILADELPHIA — The chairman of Temple University’s physics department lost his leadership post Friday, one day after federal authorities accused him of illegally sharing sensitive U.S. technology with entities in China.
Xiaoxing Xi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, however, would remain on the faculty, officials said.
The case against Mr. Xi, who was charged with four counts of wire fraud, left colleagues, researchers and former students perplexed and wondering how the professor they knew as a leading luminary in the field of superconductor research had ended up the latest target in the government’s efforts to stanch the theft of trade secrets by China and Chinese businesses.
“It’s shocking to me to see what happened yesterday,” said Temple Provost Hai-Lung Dai, a chemical physicist from Taiwan. “He’s a person of very high integrity. This is the reason we appointed him to department chair.”
Sometime during 2000-06, federal prosecutors say, Mr. Xi was trying to leverage his access to U.S. trade secrets for lucrative and prestigious postings in China.
New trial likely in 2001 case
WASHINGTON — A man convicted in the 2001 killing of federal intern Chandra Levy is likely to get a new trial after prosecutors on Friday dropped their long-standing opposition to defense efforts to have a new jury hear the case.
Since 2013, attorneys for Ingmar Guandique have argued that a key witness in the 2010 trial had lied when he testified that Guandique, his onetime cellmate, confessed to him that he killed Ms. Levy.
Guandique’s attorneys with the District of Columbia’s Public Defender Service contend that the defense should have been told that the witness, a convicted drug dealer and gang member, had been cooperating with prosecutors in other cases. They said he made up the alleged confession from Guandique to gain favor with prosecutors.
Ms. Levy, 24, went missing May 1, 2001 and her remains were found a year later in Rock Creek Park, where she had gone jogging. The young woman’s disappearance and killing emerged as one of Washington’s most sensational murder cases when it was discovered that she had an affair with Gary Condit, a married congressman who was 30 years her senior. Mr. Condit was the first suspect and later was cleared.
The prosecution decision sets up a redo of a case that was challenging for authorities from the start. There was no forensic evidence linking Guandique, a gang member, to the crime scene in Rock Creek Park, no murder weapon, no eyewitness and no definitive ruling from the medical examiner on what killed Ms. Levy. At Guandique’s 2011 sentencing, Judge Gerald Fisher noted that the government’s case “wasn’t a very strong” one.
In a filing late Friday afternoon, prosecutors wrote that the U.S. Attorney’s Office remains confident in Guandique’s guilt. Still, they wrote, the government would withdraw its opposition to the defense request for a new trial and asked for a status hearing in two weeks to begin to set a timeline for retrial.
First Published: May 24, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
