SANTA ANA (AP) – A pipeline operator said on Thuersday that it has reached a settlement with Orange County tourism companies, fishermen and other businesses that sued after a crude oil spill off the coast last year near Huntington Beach. Amplify Energy Corp., which owns the pipeline that ruptured and faces a criminal charge for its oversight, said in a state ment that claims have been settled in the classaction lawsuit filed by businesses affected by the October spill of about 25,000 gallons of crude into the Pacific Ocean. The company did not say how much the businesses would be paid but said its insurance policies will cover the cost of the settle ment, which would still need to be approved by a federal“Althoughcourt. we are un able to provide additional detail at this time, we ne gotiated in good faith and believe we have come to a reasonable and fair reso lution,” Martyn Willsher, Amplify’s president and chief executive, said in the statement.Thepipeline rupture sent blobs of crude washing ashore in surf-friendly
And $13 million to the federal govt. as well
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AN UNKNOWN AMOUNT OF MONEY is to be paid to those adversely affected by the October 2021 oil spill off the coast of Huntington Beach, including those involved in fishing, hospitality and other busi nesss. A separate settlement of nearly one million dollars has been made with the public agencies who did much of the beach cleanup (City of Huntington Beach).
Printed in Garden Grove, California n orangecountytribune.com n Saturday, Aug. 27, 2022 n orangecountytribune@gmail.com Weather Forecast Saturday: 82/68 partly cloudy Sunday: 80/65 partly cloudy Monday: 83/65 partly cloudy Tuesday: 88/67 sunny 82 / 67WEEKEND EDITION HHH For breaking news and sports all week long, go to www.orangecountytribune.com Continued on page 2 The specifics of “monetary relief” not made known LaInsideQuinta Westminstervs. for the city “title” PAGE 6
News on OC coronavrius is mixed
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on page 2
This high-speed chase starts, ends in G. Grove
A pursuit that raced across Orange County ended up with a motorcyclist caught and arrested in Garden Grove Friday night. According to Sgt. Charles Starnes of the GGPD, the incident began around 8:43 p.m. in the area of Beach and Garden Grove boulevards in Garden Grove.Officers spotted a motor cycle with a vehicle plate that didn’t match the ve hicle. The cyclist pulled over for the traffic stop, but then raced away and the pursuit began. It moved quickly across several Orange County cities with GGPD units –assisted by Anaheim po lice and Orange County sheriff’s deputies – chas
A guilty plea and an agreement to pay fines and costs of nearly $13 million may be the final chapter of the October 2021 spill that fouled the seas and sands of Hun tington Beach with oil. According to The Asso ciated Press, Amplify En ergy and two subsidiaries agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay the a fine of $7 million and almost $6 million in the expenses of the federal government. Additionally, the compa nies involved stipulated they would install a new system for the detection of leaks and train employ ees on how to respond. When the incident began with a pipeline from an
The news from the latest report on coro navirus in Orange County was mixed, with the the daily average of new cases showing an increase, two categories showing improvement and the fourth little movement at all. According to Friday’så report from the county health care agency – cover ing the days of Aug. 23-25 – the total of new cases was 1,612. That averages toAlthough537.33. still low compared to figures from recent weeks – last Friday’a daily average was 654 – it was an increase from Tuesday’s average of 488. Deaths, however, fell from 27 to 14 and the number of people hospitalized from 259 to 230. The use of intensive care units to treat COVID-19 patients stayed fairly steady, ticking up from 35 to 36.
Settlement For Those Hurt by Oil Spill off HB
The plea agreements must still be approved by U.S. District Judge David Carter. Earlier this week, the com panies reached an agreement with those whose businesses were damaged by the spill. The amount was undisclosed.
Chase starts and ends in G. Grove ing the motorcycle.
Identified only as a 37-year-old man of unknown residence, the suspect was booked into Orange County Jail for felony evading and an active arrest warrant.
2 SATURDAY, AUG 27, 2022/ORANGE COUNTY TRIBUNE JIm Tortolano Editor and Publisher Marilyn Lewis Tortolano General Manager The Orange County Tribune is published on Wednesdays and Saturdays with some exceptions. Address is 9402 Luders Ave., Garden Grove, 92844. E-mail is orangecountytribune@gmail. com.Our website is www.orangecountytri bune.com.Phone:(714) 458-1860. Established Aug. 6, 2016. All opinions ex pressed in The Tribune, unless otherwise stated, are those of the individual writer or artist and not necessarily those of The Tribune.Amember of The Associated Press , the Online News Association and the Garden Grove Chamber of Commerce. The best in local news for West OC TheTRIBUNECountyOrange Uncle Sam’s $$ Continued from page Continued from page 1 Costs of oil spill to be paid Continued from page 1
Huntington Beach and other coastal communities. While less severe than initially feared, the spill about four miles offshore shuttered beaches for a week and fisheries for more than a month, oiled birds and threat ened wetlands that communities have been striving to restore.
The incident finally ended back in Garden Grove where the sus pect yielded to police. He was taken into custody in the area of Trask Avenue and Taft Street without further incident.
The plantiff’s attorneys said in a statement that the settlement in cludes monetary relief but didn’t provide details. The agreement doesn’t apply to the operators of ships accused of dragging an chors in the harbor and causing damage to the pipeline months before the spill. “All rights to continue pursuing claims against the ship related entities are expressly reserved by both the Class Plaintiffs and the Amplify entities,” the state ment said. The settlement also doesn’t re solve Houston-based Amplify’s claims against an organization that helps oversee marine traffic.
Amplify contends that two ships during a January 2021 storm dragged their anchors across the pipeline that sent crude from offshore oil platforms to the coast, damaging the pipeline. Amplify also faces a criminal charge related to the pipeline leak.U.S. prosecutors charged Am plify and two of its subsidiar ies with illegally discharging oil and claimed the companies failed to respond to eight leak detection system alarms over a 13-hour period that should have alerted them to the spill. Am plify has said workers believed they were false alarms. offshore platform there were warning signals of a leak, but it was assumed they were errors.
REAL ID THEFT SUSPECT (WPD image). Two onhearingspublicsethousing
locations are cho sen based on the history of DUI crashes and arrests. The primary purpose of checkpoints is not to make arrests but to promote public safety by deterring driv ers from driving impaired. During the checkpoint, officers will look for signs that drivers are under the influence of alco hol and/or drugs. The HBPD reminds the public that impaired driving is not just from alcohol. Some prescription medications or over-the-counter drugs may interfere with driv ing. Always follow directions for use and read warning la bels about driving or “operat ing heavy machinery,” which includes driving a car. While medicinal and recreational mar ijuana are legal, driving under the influence of marijuana is il legal.Ifyou plan on drinking or tak ing medications that may im pact your ability to drive safely, plan on staying at home. Drivers charged with a firsttime DUI face an average of $13,500 in fines and penalties, as well as a suspended license.
n GARDEN GROVE PLANNING COMMISSION
In observance of the Labor Day holiday, Garden Grove City Hall and the H. Louis Lake Se nior Center will be closed on Monday, September 5, and will reopen on Tuesday, Sept. 6. Street sweeping services will not be provided on the holiday. Streets will be swept as sched uled on all other days. Trash pick-up will be delayed by one day.For more information on street sweeping, call the city’s Pub lic Works Department at (714) 741-5382.
September is National Pre paredness Month, and the City of Garden Grove’s Community Emergency Response Team CERT. program will offer a CPR, AED, First Aid combina tion course on Saturday, Sept. 10, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Christ Cathedral Cultural Cen ter, third floor, located at 13280 Chapman Ave. Seating is limited. Email gar dengroveCERT@aol.com to register. Registration and pay ment deadline is Friday, Sept. 2.The cost of the course is $45 for CERT members and $55 for the general Administeredpublic.by the Garden Grove Police Department, CERT. is a group of community members trained to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a disaster. Community members are trained in basic first aid, firefighting, rescue techniques, and other skills to assist first responders and help the com munity.Formore information, visit ggcity.org/cert or contact Linda Clark-Morin at (714) 741-5994.
Westminster police are seeking the public’s cooperation in find ing a woman suspected in using a stolen “Real ID” state diver’s license or identification card for some financial transactions.
FIRST AID FOR FIRST RESPONDERS
According to the WPD. the suspect is described as a white female in her 40s, with blonde hair, wearing a black dress, beige cardigan sweater and car rying a dark tote bag. The card was stolen in March 2022. In July the suspect used the card to cash a check at the U.S. National Bank at 15555 Brookhurst St. The card was used to open a Best Buy account in the victim’s name and made fraudulent charges. Anyone with information about this person is asked to call In vestigator Mach at (714) 8983315 ext. 4571 or contact via e-mail at pmach@westminsterca.gov.
ORANGE COUNTY TRIBUNE/SATURDAY, AUG. 27, 2022 3 News&Views
forforCheckpointDUIsetSept.9
Labor G.closingsDayforGrove
The Huntington Beach Police Department will hold a DUI Checkpoint on Friday, Sept. 9, from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. at an undisclosed location within the cityCheckpointlimits.
A free class on first aid, CPR, basic fire-fighting and more will be offered in Garden Grove on Saturday, Sept. 10 (Shutterstock) Basic first aid, CPR, etc. class offered on Sept. 10
Two public hearings are fea tured in the Thursday, Sept. 1 meeting of the Garden Grove Planning Commission. One public hearing will con sider an application for a oneyear time-extension for a site plan and parcel map to build two new single-family homes and the subdivision of the prop erty at 11841 Magnolia St. into two parcels of equal size.
Suspect sought in ID theft
The second public hearing will concern a variety of amend ments to the municipal code to make sure it complies with new state housing laws, including those regarding single-family residences, multi-family resi dences, commercial develop ment, mixed-use and other stan dards.Thenext step would be to con sider approval of the amend ments to the city council.
The commission will meet at 7 p.m. in the Community Meeting Center, 11300 Stanford Ave.
SANTA ANA (AP) – An Or ange County man who killed two people, including his fa ther, after being told to stop drinking beer and get a job was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Ferguson shot Douglas Ferguson, 59, twice with a handgun owned by his father without saying a word after the man came home from work. He also shot his father’s girlfriend, 51-year-old Lisa Cosenza, in the head and wounded two roommates, Todd Kuchar and Brandon Dufault, who both survived. Dufault was blinded by fly ing glass after Ferguson kicked down a bathroom door and shot him several times as he was in the shower, prosecutors said. Ferguson was captured in In glewood after a police chase. Ferguson had moved back into his father’s condominium in Aliso Viejo about six weeks be fore the Prosecutorskilling.argued that Fergu son wanted to kill everyone in the home because he was tired of being harassed about getting a job. Kuchar told the media that Ferguson had argued with his father over the issue a few days before the Ferguson’sshooting.public defender, Chris McGibbons argued that in spite of the issue, everyone in the home had appeared to get along and he hadn’t shown any hint of violence before the attack.
Killer sentenced to life in state prison plus 84 years
“The only complaint would be Luke was eating all the food and drinking all the beer and he didn’t have a job,’’ he said.
Ferguson was convicted last month of first-degree murder and attempted murder, along with special circumstance alle gations of multiple murders and sentencing enhancements for personally firing a gun and caus ing great bodily injury or death.
4 SATURDAY, AUG. 27, 2022/ORANGE COUNTY TRIBUNE
Luke William Ferguson, 31, was sentenced to life without chance of parole plus 84 years for the Oct. 12, 2107 shoot ings in Orange County that also wounded two people, according to a statement from the county district attorney’s office.
By Greg Beacham AP Sports Writer
ORANGE COUNTY TRIBUNE/SATURDAY, AUG. 27, 2022 5
McVay is now the youngest coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl, and he’s already presenting the challenges of the upcoming season to his Rams in clear, concise terms. “Let’s turn the page,” McVay said when asked to articulate his message to the defending cham pions. “Let’s not minimize what a great year last year was, but that’s not going to have anything to do with this year.’’ It’s a familiar mindset for champions trying to repeat the greatest achievement of their professional lives. But McVay excels at the deceptively simple art of getting his players in the right frame of mind to perform, and he thinks the Rams will have no hangover from last Feb ruary and a clear vision toward next“We’reFebruary.still hungry, even if we just won,” edge rusher Jus tin Hollins said. “Everybody wants another one. It’s football heaven. We want to stay in foot ball heaven, you know what I mean?”After five winning seasons, four playoff berths, three NFC West titles, two Super Bowl trips and one championship, the Rams know they can trust Mc Vay. His team won nine of 10 down the stretch last season, all the way to that thrilling finale in its home stadium. The challenge looming this season feels even bigger, but the Rams also seem quite capable of handling it.
So the mindset is in place to become the NFL’s first repeat champions in 18 years, and the talent appears to be sufficient as well. The cornerstones of the title team are nearly all in place, from Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp to Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey. There were changes, of course: midseason rental Von Miller, cornerback Darious Williams and right guard Austin Corbett all left for more free-agent mon ey elsewhere, and left tackle Andrew Whitworth retired after spending the last five seasons of his decorated 16-year career as a key part of McVay’s project. What remains is execution, health and luck. The Rams ex celled in all of those areas last season, and they’re hoping this year is just as generous.
Rams want to stay in “football heaven” Free e-paper! If you’re interested in getting a free subscription to the e-paper The Orange County Tribune, send us an e-mail orangecountytribune@at: gmail.com and we’ll get it started right away. Pub lished Wednesdays and Saturdays.
LOS ANGELES (AP)
“We realize that now we’re the ones with the targets on our back,” center Brian Allen said. “We’re not chasing the Tampa Bays, the teams that won the year before. We know we’re go ing to have a tough schedule this year, and we’re going to get ev eryone’s best shot. Bring it on.”
– Sean McVay became the young est head coach in modern NFL history in part because he’s an excellent communicator and teacher who always seems to know what to say.
“Just because we did some thing last year doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen this year,’’ Stafford said. “We’ve got to go out there and earn it. Those opportunities that we got to play in those games last year were earned. You ask yourself, what kind of opportunities are you willing to earn? It comes with sacrifice and hard work and be ing a great teammate.’’
DYNAMIC DUO
RAISE THE KUPP?
The Rams acquired quality over quantity in free agency by add ing receiver Allen Robinson and inside linebacker Bobby Wag ner. Returning home to Southern California after a decade in Se attle, Wagner will be the Rams’ defensive signal-caller and a major contributor at a position traditionally discounted in Los Angeles’ roster-building strat egy. Robinson appears to be poised for a prolific year after eight sea sons with Jacksonville and Chi cago. The physical pass-catcher has never played with a quar terback of Stafford’s caliber, and the Rams need Robinson to produce after they traded Robert Woods.
Kupp will be hard-pressed to duplicate last season’s feats: He won the NFL’s triple crown of receiving, earned the AP’s of fensive player of the year award and received All-Pro honors be fore claiming the Super Bowl MVP trophy with the eventual winning TD catch. But the ever-industrious Kupp claims he can be even better, cit ing his run blocking and certain nuances of route-running. “I think there’s a lot of parts of the game that my game was lacking,’’ Kupp said.
By Jim Tortolano Orange County Tribune
NL West Standings
Solano’s third touchdown of the half with 1:36 before halftime made it 27-0. A late Aztec surge before intermission was snuffed out by an interception.
In a rare convergence, the of fenses of both the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles An gels came alive, and how, on Fri day night. The Dodgers (87-37) scored five runs in the top of the 10th inning to win going away 10-6 over the Marlins in Miami. The Blue Crew had 16 hits but committed threeTheerrors.Angels (53-73) snapped a six-game losing streak with flair, pounding out 16 hits and gen erally pounding the Blue Jays 12-0 in Toronto. Three Halos hit home runs: Andrew Velazquez (two runs), Joe Adell (two hom ers) and Mike Trout (two runs; his 27th homer of the year)/ Adell’s performance gleamed brightest: he was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three RBIs. The beneficiary of all that was Reid Detmers (5-4), who pitched 5.1 innings, giving up four hits and no runs. He struck out five
Westminster has passing, running attack to excel Current as of Friday night results
OaklandANGELSTexasSeattleHouston 46-8153-7358-6768-5781-46W-L .362.423.464.545.638Pct. 3527.52212GB 4-62-86-46-46-4L10
AL West Standings
The rest of the game was a little quieter as the Lions outscored their guests in the second half by 14-9, but for the winners, the music lingered. Next Friday, Westminster will take on Los Amigos, at Monsoor Stadium on the Garden Grove High campus. LQ will be on the road on Friday, visiting the Sad dleback High Roadunners.
In the season opener for both teams – and a contest for the mythical “City of Westminster” championship – WHS rolled past La Quinta 41-9. The Lions, employing a multifaceted attack, led 13-0 after the first quarter and 27-0 at the half and went on to the win. They took the opening kickoff and drove to the Aztec 29, where Alex Solano threw a touchdown pass for the game’s initial score at 9:35 of the first quarter. The conversion failed and WHS led 6-0.After the Aztecs punted, Solano found Ezekial Cedello for a 36yard strike at the 5:35 mark and after the PAT, it was 13-0. When it looked like the Aztecs had finally stalled the Lions on a fourth and 25, the home team solved the puzzle with a half back pass that set up another Lion TD and a 20-0 lead early in the second quarter.
6 SATURDAY, AUG. 27, 2022/ORANGE COUNTY TRIBUNE The Sports Page
By Pete Zarustica Orange County Tribune
EZEKIEL CEDILLO (13) is off to the races for Westminster against La Quinta Friday night (Tribune photos by Jim Tortolano).
The Westminster High School band played “Rule, Britannia” after every success of the Lion football team Friday night, so much so that neighbors living within earshot of Bill Boswell Field may still be hearing the tune in their dreams.
Angels snap streak; Dodgers win in 10
ColoradoArizonaSanSanDODGERSDiegoFran. 54-7057-6761-6369-5387-37W-L .435.460.492.543.702Pct. 32302419.5––GB 3-74-64-64-67-3L10
Lions On a Fast Start with 41-9 win
Baseball batters and walked three. In the Dodger-Marlin game, the teams were tied 5-5 after nine, and then things got really interesting. The Blue Crew put together doubles from Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy to put five on the board in the 10th inning. Betts had a great night overall. He hit his 28th and 29th homers of the season, as he batted 4-for6 and drove in four runs and scored three On Saturday, the Angels and Dodgers will face the same foes in the same stadiums.
