Pipeline company fined for spills including one in NE Georiga

Posted 8:10AM on Wednesday 2nd April 2003 ( 22 years ago )

WASHINGTON - An Atlanta-based oil pipeline company has agreed to pay a $34 million civil penalty under the Clean Water Act to settle government charges that seven oil spills illegally polluted waterways in five southern states, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Tuesday. The Environmental Protection Agency said the civil penalty to be paid by Colonial Pipeline Co., entered at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta, is the largest in EPA's history. The penalty money is to be used to pay for oil-spill cleanups nationwide. The settlement is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval. Colonial was charged with spilling 1.45 million gallons of oil in Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee because of pipeline corrosion, mechanical damage and operator error. Ashcroft said the Justice Department, which represented EPA, regards it as ``a critical priority'' to maintain the nation's industrial infrastructure such as oil pipelines. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said the settlement prevents future harm to public health and the environment. The settlement also requires Colonial to designate as ``high consequences areas'' the last 27 percent of its 5,500-mile pipeline system not previously classified in accordance with the Transportation Department's Office of Pipeline Safety. Already, 73 percent of the company's pipelines were being operated under the more stringent regulations, which require closer inspections and monitoring because the lines are considered environmentally sensitive and close to population centers. The company also agreed to spend an as-yet-undetermined amount to meet its commitment to operate under the tougher regulations and to hire an independent, EPA-approved monitoring contractor. The government put that figure at $30 million, but the company said it is lower because much of the work already has been done. ``The company is committed to maintaining system integrity and safety along the pipeline,'' said Susan Castiglione, a company senior manager. ``This is and always will be our No. 1 priority at Colonial,'' she said. According to the Justice Department, the spills occurred between about 1996 and 2000 in Bear Creek near Athens, Ga.; Darling Creek in St. Helena Parish, La.; East Fork Deep River and an unnamed creek, both at Greensboro, N.C.; Reedy River in Simpsonville and an unnamed creek near Blacksburg, both in S.C.; and Goose Creek and the Tennessee River, both in Knoxville, Tenn. In the Reedy River case, the company pleaded guilty in February 1999 to criminal misdemeanor negligence and was ordered to pay a $7 million fine and hire a third-party contractor to oversee its spill prevention program until February 2004. Colonial, the nation's largest refined petroleum pipeline company, carries about a fifth of the gasoline, home heating oil, aviation fuel and other liquid petroleum products that the United States consumes. The company's pipelines stretch from Houston, Texas, to Staten Island, N.Y., serving mostly the Southeast and East Coast. The southeast line bisecs Jackson, Barrow, Elbert, Hart and Clarke counties. In 1996, Colonial was identified by the National Transportation Safety Board as having one of the highest accident rates in the hazardous liquid pipeline industry. The company hired former NTSB head Jim Hall in 2001 as a safety and environmental protection consultant. By then it had gone two years without a 50-barrel spill, the minimum volume requiring a report to the Transportation Department.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/4/181231