Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

A Kentucky oil company faces a criminal investigation and possible $25,000-per-day fines for multiple environmental violations that have marred the local community, according to a report by Convenience Store News Online. Childers Oil Co., a petroleum vendor and operator of 45 convenience stores, is responsible for a serious oil sludge leak in November of last year and a diesel fuel leak February. According to government records, Childers Oil, which is based in the eastern Kentucky city of Whitesburg, has also been cited for at least 10 other violations since 1995.

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In a 3-1 vote, California’s State Water Resources Control Board approved legislation that will require motor fuels containing more than 20 percent biodiesel to be stored in above ground tanks. It seems strange that regular petroleum diesel can be stored in underground tanks while “green” fuel must be stored above ground for fear of leakage and possible environmental contamination. But California has a law mandating that underground storage tanks be independently certified as leak proof before they can be used to store  new types of fuel, such as high-grade biodiesels. That testing and certification process can take as long as three years.

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Forty-five neighbors from a Pennsylvania community that was contaminated by a massive fuel leak more than a decade ago are still fighting for justice. Many residents of  Blue Bell, a town in Montgomery County, Penn., became sick in the late 1990s after consuming water contaminated by several thousand gallons of gasoline released from an underground storage tank at a local Gulf gas station. All of the affected people had wells or access to wells.

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