Santa Barbara oil spill cleanup cost hits $92 million

SANTA BARBARA — Cleaning up the coastline impacted by the May 19 Refugio oil spill has cost the oil firm responsible for the ruptured pipeline at least $92 million, according to a company spokesperson. Plains All American Pipeline, the Houston-based oil company who claimed responsibility for the pipeline that burst nearly two months ago, anticipates costs will continue to add up during the next few months. “While our focus remains on mitigating the incident, we recognize the need to report costs. From a cost standpoint, through June 23, we estimate that we have spent a total of approximately $92 million on the cleanup and response effort,” said Pat Hodgins, spokesperson for Plains All American Pipeline. “This is only an estimate of spill response and cleanup costs and does not include other potential costs, including all third-party claims, fines, penalties or regulatory or court proceedings or lost revenues.” Hodgins added the cleanup was organized across five zones: water, beach, bluffs, culvert and release site. “On the water, all visible released oil was collected some time ago. As previously reported, the released oil from Line 901 was no longer visible on the water by Day 4,” said Hodgins, adding 93 percent of the affected coastline has...