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January 06, 2025
January 06, 2025
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Book Your Consultation In a significant move to uphold environmental justice, U.S. oil and gas company Phillips 66, is now facing federal charges for illegally dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of hazardous waste in Los Angeles sewers.
Phillips 66 is officially being charged by a federal grand jury with two counts of negligently violating the Clean Water Act (CWA), which regulates the discharge of pollutants into the U.S. waters, and four counts of knowingly violating the Clean Water Act. If convicted, this could result in the company paying up to $2.4 million dollars in fines and up to 5 years probation on each count.
These charges stem from two spills that occurred just three months apart, during which federal prosecutors claim a total of 790,000 gallons of heavily contaminated wastewater was discharged into Los Angeles County sewers from Phillips 66’s oil plant in Carson.
The first spill occurred in November of 2020 and is estimated to have polluted the L.A. sewer system with 310,000 gallons of wastewater containing 64,000 pounds of grease and oil. Prosecutors say this level of oil and grease was more than 300 times the amount allowed in Phillips 66’s permit. Sanitation officials were not notified of the spill and the company received notices of violation from the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (LACSD). Despite these notices, Phillips 66 dumped another 33,700 pounds of oil and grease into the public sewage system just a few months later. They received additional violation notices from the LACSD for once again failing to notify sanitation officials of the spill.
Improper disposal of hazardous waste not only disrupts ecosystems but also jeopardizes public resources and community health. This case is an opportunity to reinforce the critical need for corporate compliance with environmental regulations and will hopefully serve as a precedent for other large companies to take not only the law, but our delicate environment into consideration while operating.
Vineet Dubey of Custodio & Dubey says,“It’s a little rare for a corporation to be charged criminally instead of civilly. Essentially the impact will be that they will have to pay much larger fines than if they were sued civilly by the federal government.”
Vineet also says, “I’m honestly very pleased to see such accountability in action as this is a scenario that threatens the environment while also violating the law.”
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