Toxic fumes continued to hang in the air at an industrial area of Los Angeles Friday, a day after a pipeline run by a company with a checkered history of accidents ruptured and spilled at least 18,000 gallons of crude oil onto city streets.
“We can smell fumes, but we’re all in today for work,” said an employee at Plumbing and Industrial Supply, a business next door to The Gentleman’s Club, a strip joint that served as the epicenter to the spill and was showered in crude during the rupture in the early hours of Thursday morning.
At least four people became ill from the fumes and two were hospitalized after the oil soaked an area about a half-block long, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD).
It has since emerged that the company behind the pipeline, Plains All American Pipeline LP, has been held responsible for at least 10 violations of the Clean Water Act due to various spills over the last decade.