Gas pipeline company charged by EPA over lack of emergency drills

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004 | 10:41 a.m.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday charged a gasoline pipeline company with endangering the environment in Nevada, saying Kinder Morgan Energy Partners violated the Clean Water Act at its facility in Sparks.

The agency seeks as much as $157,000 in penalties from the company for failing to conduct emergency drills as required, saying Kinder Morgan's actions created a higher risk of an oil spill.

The Sparks oil storage and terminal is about a mile away from the Truckee River and can store more than a million gallons of oil, the agency noted.

"Kinder Morgan is jeopardizing the environment by violating the Clean Water Act," the EPA's Keith Takata said in a statement. "Exercising emergency response measures is a crucial component of oil spill response planning."

The company's actions have raised environmental concerns before. Last month, a Kinder Morgan pipeline near Baker, Calif., was shut down for a day because of a gasoline leak. Last year, the company's pipelines spilled tens of thousands of gallons of oil in separate incidents in California and Arizona.

Kinder Morgan, the nation's largest petroleum transporter with more than 25,000 miles of pipeline, has its West Coast headquarters in Orange, Calif.