LOS ANGELES — The Texas company operating the pipeline that caused a massive oil spill in the waters off Huntington Beach agreed to plead no contest to state environmental charges and pay nearly $5 million in fines and penalties, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Orange County and state prosecutors this week charged Houston-based Amplify Energy Corp. and two subsidiaries — Beta Operating Co. and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Co. — with misdemeanor counts of pollution and failing to immediately report last fall's discharge of oil into state waters to the Office of Emergency Services.
The companies were also charged with four misdemeanor counts for taking two brown pelicans, which are protected birds, and taking two migratory nongame birds, a western grebe and a Brandt's cormorant, according to a criminal complaint filed in Orange County Superior Court.
