A shell company lasted only weeks before filing bankruptcy
after polluting a West Virginia river and drinking water for 300,000 people.
No assets, no insurance, as near as I can tell.
Sabal Trail Transmission is a shell company owned by Spectra Energy
and NextEra and managed by Spectra:
what assets does it have, and what insurance has it offered
in case its pipeline corrodes and leaks
like Spectra has been fined for
or one of its compressor stations
leaks like in Pennsylvania or Maine
or
residents have to evacuate
as Spectra’s Susan Waller said would happen in case of a “true emergency”?
Who will pay for the local first responders,
or property damage,
or a polluted aquifer?
Nick Visser wrote for The Huffington Post 17 January 2014,
Freedom Industries, Company Behind West Virginia Chemical Spill, Files For Bankruptcy,
The company behind the
massive chemical spill that made
tap water unsafe for more than 300,000 West Virginians
has filed for bankruptcy, according to
documents obtained by The Huffington Post.
According to bankruptcy filings, Freedom Industries, wholly
owned by Chemstream Holdings Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
on Friday. Freedom Industries owns the storage facility responsible
for leaking up to 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (a
coal-cleaning chemical also known as crude MCHM) into West Virginia’s
Elk River.
And Freedom Industries was only formed a few weeks ago.
Steven Mufson wrote for the Washington Post (undated),
One week after W. Va. toxic spill, new owner of Freedom Industries puts firm in bankruptcy,
It took just one week for Pennsylvania coal mining executive Cliff
Forrest, the new owner of Freedom Industries, to discover that one
of the six-decade-old storage tanks he had acquired Dec. 31 was
leaking a toxic chemical into the Elk River that supplies water to
about 300,000 West Virginians….
Forrest, through another firm he owns, paid Continue reading WV polluter files bankruptcy: why should we expect better from Sabal Trail? →
The pipeline Sabal Trail wants to connect to,
Williams Transco in Alabama,
blew up in 2011, flaming a hundred feet up,
heard more than 30 miles away,
left a crater more than 50 feet wide,
destroyed 65 acres of trees,
fried five acres of soil into pottery,
and launched a 43-foot pipe section as a missile
that landed 190 feet away.
The cause was never announced.
There was no construction going on, so
could it be corrosion?
Do we want another pipeline like that?
Williams did some pigging just before this pipeline rupture but they didn’t receive the pigging results until after the explosion. The word from the locals in Alabama is that Williams is now frantically digging up parts of this same pipeline in several different locations which could indicate the problem is not isolated.Williams does not have a good track record of pipeline safety.
