PITTSBURGH -- Ashland Oil Co. says it is 'disappointed with the tone' of a state task force report recommending civil and possible criminal action for an oil spill that polluted two rivers and threatened water supplies in three states.
The spill 'could have been and should have been averted,' the task force appointed by Gov. Robert P. Casey said Wednesday in a 111-page report.
Ashland, while not disputing that point, said the task force reached conclusions that were 'essentially the same' as the Battelle Memorial Institute of Ohio, which the company itself commissioned to report on the spill.
The diesel fuel spilled Jan. 2 from a collapsed Ashland storage tank near Pittsburgh, and about 1 million gallons flowed into the Monongahela and Ohio rivers.
The spill forced water and fire departments in Wheeling, Sistersville, Parkersburg and Wheeling, W.Va., as well as Steubenville, Marietta and St. Clairsville, Ohio, to take emergency measures to prevent oil from contaminating their water supplies.
During the spill, faucets ran dry in thousands of homes in suburban Pittsburgh because utilities were forced to shut river intakes.
People snapped up bottled water, National Guard units rolled in water tanks and fire departments were on emergency alert because of low water stocks. Even chic restaurants turned to paper plates and other disposble utensils so they could continue operating while using less water.
In its report, the task force recommended civil action to 'impose maximum monetary penalties' against Ashland and said it would ask the state attorney general to consider possible criminal action against the company.
Ashland spokesman Roger Schrum said the company has 'cooperated fully' with federal and state environmental authorities. 'We are disappointed with the tone of the report,' he said.
'The company believes that pursuing a criminal action or seeking maximum civil penalties would be counterproductive in light of Ashland's efforts to mitigate the spill's impact, the fact that the company quickly accepted responsibility for the incident and Ashland's cooperation with state and federal agencies in all aspects of the collapse and cleanup,' Schrum said.
Ashland has paid $6.4 million in cleanup costs, reimbursed government agencies $1.1 million in expenses and paid claims from 2,300 individuals and 204 businesses, Schrum said.
The company volunteered to assess the spill's long-term environmental impact by hiring consulting firm ERT of Houston, Battelle and the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Hazardous Materials Research, he said.
Casey and Pennsylvania's chief environmental legal adviser, Keith Welks, released the task force report at a news conference.
Ashland should have used better tests on the 40-year-old flawed steel in the tank that ruptured, the report said. The oil tank had once been used in Cleveland but was dismantled and reassembled at a site along the Monongahela near Pittsburgh.
Previous studies said a dime-size flaw in the aging diesel tank caused a zipper-like crack that spilled fuel into the rivers.
Ashland and the tank contractor, Skinner Tank Co. of Yale, Okla., 'displayed a pervasive pattern of neglect at virtually every step of the tank relocation project,' the task force report said.
'Both the existence of the flaw and the tendency of the tank steel to react brittlely under normal regional climactic and service conditions were discoverable through the application of good engineering, construction and inspection practices, and by compliance with applicable industry and governmental standards,' it said.
The task force said any legal action against Ashland would be in addition to a consent decree filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh. In that action, Ashland agreed to pay the federal government $680,000 for spill-related costs and clean up the spill site.
In a separate matter, Ashland announced it will begin using certain tanks at the Jefferson refinery site next month again to handle 'light oil,' or diesel, kerosene and gasoline. The company said it already has begun to use the site to handle 'heavy oil,' or liquefied asphalt.
