U.S. blames Plains pipeline company for Santa Barbara oil spill

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Numerous lapses in safety measures, judgment and planning by Plains All American Pipeline LP led to and worsened a major oil spill last year that fouled miles of shoreline and ocean near Santa Barbara, California, the U.S. Transportation Department said on Thursday. The agency said the government would focus next on "enforcement options" against the Houston-based company for the rupture of a petroleum pipeline that federal inspectors have found was severely worn by corrosion. In their final report on the spill, federal investigators found Plains "failed on multiple levels to prevent, detect and respond to this incident," said Marie Therese Dominguez, head of the Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Among several factors cited by the report as contributing to the spill was "the company's failure to protect the pipeline from corrosion" and to promptly detect and respond to the rupture once it occurred," the safety agency said in a statement. The report came two days after Plains was indicted in California on 46 state criminal charges stemming from the oil spill, which environmental groups have seized on as demonstrating the hazards posed by an aging U.S. oil and gas transportation infrastructure. Plains said it was reviewing the federal report but declined to immediately comment on its findings, citing pending litigation and ongoing investigations of the incident. (Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)