The former owner of a North Pole petroleum refinery is financially liable for groundwater pollution that has contaminated drinking-water wells around the refinery, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled. Via AlaskaBeacon
The former owner of a North Pole petroleum refinery is financially liable for groundwater pollution that has contaminated drinking-water wells around the refinery, the Alaska Supreme Court said in“While we’re still reviewing the decision in its totality, this is a huge win for the public, for the environment, and for the state,” Attorney General Treg Taylor said in an emailed statement.
Part of the refining process involved the use of a chemical known as sulfolane, a solvent. Spills and poor maintenance, the court found, resulted in sulfolane spilling on the ground, and Williams Alaska detected the chemical in local groundwater as early as 1996, though it didn’t report that fact to the state Department of Environmental Conservation for five years.
Williams Alaska raised a variety of arguments in defense, including the claims that sulfolane isn’t harmful, that DEC was negligent in oversight, that the refinery’s sales contract capped damages, and that the state was engaging in unconstitutional taking.After a 16-day bench trial in 2019, a Fairbanks Superior Court judge found Williams Alaska mostly responsible for the costs of transitioning homes to piped water and for much of DEC’s future oversight costs.
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