Phillips 66 faces federal charges, accused of polluting LA sewers with 790,000 gallons of wastewater
Phillips 66, the massive U.S. oil and gas company, is facing federal charges for allegedly dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of polluted wastewater into the Los Angeles County sewer system.
A federal grand jury returned a six-count indictment this week charging the Houston-based corporation with two counts of negligently violating the Clean Water Act and four counts of knowingly violating the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California said Thursday. The charges were filed in connection with two spills that happened within three months of each other, when federal prosecutors allege a total of 790,000 gallons of heavily polluted wastewater was dumped into LA county sewers from the company's oil processing plant in Carson.
The company responded to the criminal charges in a statement to CBS News Los Angeles Thursday.
"Phillips 66 will continue its cooperation with the U.S. Attorney's office and is prepared to present its case in these matters in court," Slgi Jolissaint, a spokesperson for the company, wrote in the statement. "The company remains committed to operating safely and protecting the health and safety of our employees and the communities where we operate."
Last month, Phillips 66 announced it was closing the Carson facility and the rest of its refinery in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington — blaming the shutdown on market dynamics and concerns over the "long-term sustainability" of the LA refinery.
The publicly traded energy giant, which reported earnings of $7 billion in 2023, could face up to $2.4 million dollars in fines and up to five years' probation on each count if convicted of all charges, according to prosecutors.
On the morning of Nov. 24, 2020, about 310,000 gallons of industrial wastewater — holding roughly 64,000 pounds of oil and grease — was released into the LA sewer system, federal prosecutors allege. It contained a concentration of oil and grease that prosecutors say is more than 300 times the amount allowed in the company's permit.
The next month, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (LACSD) issued multiple notices of violations to the company for the alleged dumping of harmful amounts of oil, accusing the company of failing to notify sanitation officials about the spill.
A manager at Phillips later acknowledged the incident, prosecutors say, telling LACSD that the company would "retrain operations personnel" on how to handle such spills and how to notify the sanitation districts if and when they happen.
However, less than three months later, Phillips' Carson refinery dumped another 480,000 gallons of heavily polluted industrial wastewater into the public sewage system, federal prosecutors allege. The wastewater contained at least 33,700 pounds of oil and grease, according to prosecutors, and was released into the sewer system over five and a half hours on the night of Feb. 8, 2021.
After that spill, LACSD issued notices of violations to Phillips and said the oil company again failed to notify sanitation officials, prosecutors said. A Phillips manager acknowledged the violation, according to federal prosecutors, and again admitted Phillips failed to notify sanitation officials.
The company is expected to be arraigned in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles in the coming weeks, but the local U.S. Attorney's Office has not released a date for the court hearing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating the case.