Judge intervenes in oil spill trial questioning

SANTA BARBARA — “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” were the answers an oil pipeline company’s safety manager gave to most questions asked by the prosecution team Monday in the criminal negligence trial over the 2015 Refugio State Beach oil spill.

Whether her inability to answer the prosecution’s questions were due to a lack of knowledge of pipeline integrity management procedure or because the prosecution team was asking questions above witness Cassandra Alexander’s pay grade wasn’t exactly clear.

Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge James Herman interjected on at least two occasions during the prosecution’s examination to inquire about the purpose of certain lines of questioning.

“With this issue, in terms of this witness, it seems that she doesn’t know a whole lot,” Herman said after a continuous stream of objections on the grounds of speculation came from the defense team for Plains All American Pipeline LP.

As the objections continued to mount during Alexander’s testimony, so did the tension between Judge Herman and Plains’ lead defense attorney Gary Lincenberg of Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks, Lincenberg & Rhow.

After Herman said, “Overruled” to yet another objection, Lincenberg said, “Your Honor, if I may ... ”

“You may not, until I finish reading the document,” Herman answered, cutting Lincenberg off before he could finish his sentence.

During Lincenberg’s cross examination of Alexander, she stated she was merely an associate integrity specialist at the time of the spill and was still receiving training in different aspects of the job.

Eventually, after Deputy District Attorney Kevin Weichbrod asked Alexander to review yet another document she seemed to be unfamiliar with, Lincenberg made a substantial objection, which seemed to resonate with Herman in the trial that began in May and has since lost five jurors.

“Calls for speculation and undue consumption of time,” Lincenberg said.

He went on to argue many of the documents being presented by the prosecution were beyond Alexander’s purview or had already been reviewed by other witnesses in previous testimony.

While Herman did allow Alexander to attempt to answer the question pertaining to the document, he then went on to say the objection was well made and urged the prosecution to move on. People v. Plains All American Pipeline LP, 1495091 (Santa Barbara Super. Ct., filed May 16, 2016).

The second witness to take the stand, facility integrity coordinator Henry Cordova, seemed to be able to answer more of the prosecution’s questions.

About halfway through his testimony Monday afternoon, he told Deputy Attorney General Brett Morris he was aware of a published document written by NACE International, a nonprofit organization for the corrosion control industry, that said Cathodic protection, one of the methods used by Plains to deter corrosion of metal surfaces with an electrical current, may be ineffective.

“The document states that it has been proven on other lines that Cathodic protection may not be effective,” Cordova said. “Therefore, other technologies may be used.”

“Are those the conclusions accepted within the industry, including at Plains?” Judge Herman asked. Cordova replied, “Yes, I believe so.”

Cordova then testified there were other techniques to detect and prevent corrosion and the Cathodic protection system was only a supplemental preventative and was the second line of defense against corrosion.

Katherine Buckingham, a preparedness analyst and planning specialist from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in testimony last week the failure of the Cathodic protection system of Plains pipeline 901 was one of the four root causes of the 2015 oil spill at Refugio State Beach.