Contractor spills 1,300 gallons of jet fuel at Aspen airport
Jason Auslander
September 24, 2018
A contractor at the Aspen airport spilled more than 1,300 gallons of jet fuel Friday, though it was contained and did not reach water sources, an official said Monday.
The spill occurred after an Atlantic Aviation employee failed to follow protocols and did not check a fuel tank at the fixed base operation area before he began filling it, said Jonathan Jones, Atlantic Aviation general manager.
While it is difficult to estimate exactly how much fuel spilled, Jones said Monday his best guess was that it was about 1,325 gallons total.
Rick Balentine, Aspen fire chief, said he did not know about the spill until he was asked about it Monday.
"Something of this size, we should have been called immediately," Balentine said, noting that fire officials will investigate what happened.
Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo, whose agency also was not notified, agreed.
"I do think someone should have alerted the Fire Department and the Sheriff's Office about it," he said Monday. "I hope they notified Environmental Health."
Karen Koenemann, Pitkin County public health director, said the county's Environmental Health Department was not told of the spill, either.
Estimates of exactly how much fuel spilled Friday morning varied widely throughout the day Monday and into the evening hours.
Fil Meraz, director of operations at the airport, initially told The Aspen Times that 200 gallons spilled about 9 a.m. Friday as a tanker truck was filling one of the four 25,000 gallon fuel storage tanks at the airport's fixed base operation area.
However, Balentine said later that a report submitted to the state by Atlantic Aviation notes that "perhaps 1,000 gallons" of fuel spilled after a staff worker filling the tank didn't notice it was full. The report says fuel escaped out a side vent, into rocks and soil and eventually onto an asphalt area, Balentine said.
He declined to release the report to the Times.
State regulations require petroleum releases of more than 25 gallons, including spills from fuel pumps, to be reported to the state oil inspector within 24 hours. Jones said the incident was reported Friday. A spokesman for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment confirmed Monday the spill was reported.
Later Monday night, Meraz explained that the 200-gallon number was the amount of fuel initially reported to airport officials by Atlantic Aviation. Upon further investigation, Meraz said he learned that 200 gallons was the amount that was cleaned up, though the semi-truck fuel tanker actually emptied far more fuel.
Jones said he didn't know where the initial estimate of 200 gallons came from. It may have been the amount of fuel that spilled out of the fuel tank containment area and onto the road where fuel trucks park and was cleaned up by an emergency hazmat team from Grand Junction, Jones said.
The remaining 1,125 gallons soaked into the containment area of the tank farm and will need to be cleaned up by another, non-emergency hazmat team as soon as possible, he said.
The emergency hazmat team checked the storm drains and confirmed that fuel did not reach any water sources, he said.
"All appropriate authorities were immediately notified of the incident," Jones said in a written statement. "Atlantic Aviation employees took immediate action to contain the spill and engaged a professional hazmat spill response team on Friday to ensure the area is properly contained and mitigated."
The jet fuel spilled into a containment area designed to handle fuel spills, Meraz said.
The rocks and soil in the spill area will be cleaned up and replaced by Atlantic Aviation, he said.
Meraz characterized the spill as "medium"-sized and said he's never seen a similar situation in 25 years of working at the airport. At $7.90 a gallon — the price listed by Atlantic Aviation for jet fuel Monday — the 1,325-gallon spill was worth $10,467.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency does not have to be notified of fuel spills unless they enter water ways, said Lisa McClain-Vanderpool, a spokeswoman in Denver.
A federal appeals court is forcing the Environmental Protection Agency to impose a chemical safety rule the Trump administration attempted to delay.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a motion Friday night to force the EPA to enforce the risk management plan rule, a regulation passed during the Obama administration.
“Because EPA has not engaged in reasoned decision-making, its promulgation of the delay rule is arbitrary and capricious,” the court wrote, noting the agency’s delay tactic “makes a mockery of the statute.”
The same court issued a similar ruling in August after activists asked the judges to skip the traditional 52-day waiting period to enforce its Aug. 31 ruling, which held that the Trump administration improperly delayed the regulation.
Judges eventually reversed the order, saying it had been made “inadvertently.” Judges Judith Rogers and Robert Wilkins never explained their reasoning. Friday’s ruling effectively implements the court’s order from August.
Usually courts allow 52 days for the EPA to consider appealing the order, which would have put it on Oct. 8. Activists and attorneys general involved in the litigation wanted the court to skip the wait period based on what they call the immediate danger associated with holding up the rule. (RELATED: 9th Circuit Court Forces EPA To Enforce Obama-Era Pesticide Ban)
Imposing the rule requires “coordination between thousands of regulated parties and the local governments and emergency response entities in their specific locations, many of which require … guidance and clarity regarding their role and obligations in the coordination process,” the agency wrote in a statement.
A waiting period “allows the agency a short but reasonable time to assess these issues and concerns,” the agency added.
The Trump administration delayed implementing it while it reconsidered major aspects of the rule, which was initially due to take effect in March 2017. The EPA proposed a complete rollback of the rule but that has not been made final.
The Aug. 31 ruling came after the U.S. District Court in South Carolina ordered the EPA on Aug. 16 to reinstate the Waters of the United States rule after the agency tried to delay it under former Administrator Scott Pruitt.
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This West, Texas, fertilizer plant exploded in 2013, killing 15 people
Court torpedoes Trump EPA bid to delay safety standards
Amanda Reilly, E&E News reporter
Friday, August 17, 2018
In another major court loss for the Trump administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today tossed out a rule delaying Obama-era safety standards for chemical facilities.
According to the court, EPA failed to adequately justify the 20-month delay in the face of Congress' desire to ensure protections for workers and residents against highly dangerous chemical releases.
The D.C. Circuit also found that EPA turned a Clean Air Act provision that allows for only short delays of rules on its head.
The court did not mince words: EPA "makes a mockery of the statute" with a rule that was "calculated to enable non-compliance," the 36-page opinion said.
Judges Judith Rogers and Robert Wilkins, both appointed by Democratic presidents, issued the ruling. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who is President Trump's nominee to the vacant Supreme Court seat, heard arguments in the case in March but did not participate in the opinion.
It's the third time in eight days that a federal court has ruled against a high-profile piece of the Trump EPA's deregulatory agenda, emboldening foes of the administration (Greenwire, Aug. 13).
Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found EPA unlawfully failed to finalize a ban on the heavily used farm chemical chlorpyrifos. Yesterday, a federal judge in South Carolina halted the administration's rule delaying implementation of the Obama-era Clean Water Rule.
"Again and again, the Trump EPA has tried to push through policies that jeopardize our health and fly in the face of the law — and again and again, we've taken them to court and won," said Democratic New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood.
At issue in the case is a regulation EPA published in January 2017, shortly before the Obama administration left office, aimed at protecting emergency responders from chemical exposure, preventing accidents at plants and helping facility operators learn from accidents that do occur.
The Obama administration issued the updated Risk Management Program (RMP) rule largely in response to a 2013 chemical fire at a Texas fertilizer facility that killed 15 people.
The new standards were supposed to start taking effect in March 2017, but then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt stayed compliance for 90 days. The agency followed up in June by announcing a nearly two-year delay to Feb. 19, 2019.
Pruitt said EPA needed more time to weigh concerns, including those raised by some states that the rule would pose national security risks because it would allow data about chemical facilities to be disclosed to the public.
But several states and a coalition of community and environmental groups sued, arguing EPA had both violated the Clean Air Act and failed to follow proper rulemaking procedures.
'This is not EPA's call'
EPA based its delay on a provision of the Clean Air Act that allows the agency to put off a rule by 90 days if it has received reconsideration petitions. The agency said, though, that it needed more time to review objections to the chemical safety rule.
In court, EPA's foes argued that the agency had turned its authority to delay rules into an "effective rescission" of the Obama-era standards.
The D.C. Circuit agreed, finding that Congress clearly placed limits on EPA's ability to stay regulations.
Regardless of whether EPA believes three months is an "insufficient" amount of time, "this is not EPA's call," the court opinion says. "Congress saw fit to place a three-month statutory limit."
The court also slammed EPA's efforts to escape the 90-day limit set in the Clean Air Act provision by pointing to its general rulemaking authority. EPA would deprive the air law of "virtually all effect," the opinion says.
The delay rule is "for all intents and purposes" an attempt by EPA to stay the standards while it decides "what it wants to do, rather than a substantive amendment to tools and programs in the Chemical Disaster Rule," the D.C. Circuit ruled.
Rogers and Wilkins also ruled that EPA failed to follow proper rulemaking procedures because it didn't adequately explain why it was departing from the conclusions reached during the Obama administration.
The judges noted, though, that the ruling is narrow. EPA, they said, can still go back and substantively revise the rule and its compliance deadlines. In May, Pruitt signed off on a proposal to roll back portions of the Obama-era standards (E&E News PM, May 17).
But the judges today also devoted many words to dissecting Congress' intent in issuing the Clean Air Act.
"Reading the plain text makes clear that Congress is seeking meaningful, prompt action by EPA to promote accident prevention," they said.
At the March arguments, Rogers in particular appeared concerned by testimony from an attorney representing the United Steelworkers and other labor unions that workers continue to be hurt or killed by accidents at chemical plants.
"The record is full of this problem that these are extremely dangerous situations, people are continuing to be harmed," the Clinton-appointed judge said. "I don't see anything in the delay rule that says, 'We have evidence that these harms are not occurring.'"
An EPA spokesperson said the agency was "reviewing the decision."
The American Chemistry Council said it was "disappointed in today’s ruling not to allow EPA to delay several problematic changes to the Risk Management Plan that could undermine the future success of this important program. We will evaluate the court’s decision and continue to work with the Agency to safeguard chemical facilities and protect communities."
YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO —
State investigators have determined an open flame too close to combustibles in the living room of a home on Glen View Drive in Yellow Springs likely caused the deadly fire there last month.
Trevor A. Nared, 26, of Yellow Springs, was killed in the fire in the 1400 block of Glen View on Aug. 24.
A woman was hospitalized after she escaped the fire.
The Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office determined the fire was accidental.
“When I got here there was very heavy smoke coming from the structure, a lot of heavy flames coming from the front as well, very involved,” Assistant Chief Denny Powell of Miami Township Fire-Rescue said.
Powell said there were multiple 911 calls about the fire, including from the homeowner who reported the man in his 20s was trapped. Crews initially were able to go in the back of the house, but the intense flames made it unsafe for firefighters and unlikely anyone was still alive inside, Powell said.
“There were no smoke detectors that were activated,” said Powell, who urged residents to buy smoke detectors and change batteries.
In addition to Miami Twp. Fire-Rescue, fire crews from Cedarville and Xenia townships and Husted responded, Powers said.
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Coroner identifies man, 26, killed in Yellow Springs house fire
Published: Friday, August 24, 2018 @ 11:33 AM
Updated: Monday, August 27, 2018 @ 8:45 AM
By: Breaking News Staff
A disabled man was killed after he was trapped inside a burning home Friday.
YELLOW SPRINGS — A 26-year-old disabled man was killed Friday after he was trapped inside a burning home in a fire that also injured a woman who had to be stopped by bystanders from running back inside.
Fire reported at 1426 Glen View Road
Man killed, woman injured, 2 dogs perish
Home had no smoke detectors, official said
UPDATE @ 8:45 a.m. (Aug. 27):
The man killed in a Yellow Springs house fire has been identified as Trevor A. Nared, 26, of Yellow Springs, according to the Greene County Coroner’s Office.
Content Continues Below
UPDATE @ 4 p.m. (Aug. 24):
A woman was hospitalized after she escaped a fire Friday morning that claimed the life of a disabled man in his 20s who was trapped inside.
The fire was dispatched around 11:25 p.m. in the 1400 block of Glen View Road
“When I got here there was very heavy smoke coming from the structure, a lot of heavy flames coming from the front as well, very involved,” Assistant Chief Denny Powell of Miami Township Fire-Rescue said.
Fire Yellow Springs
“There is a confirmed fatality, unfortunately as well as two dogs. They had three dogs -- one was able to get out,” Powell said.
The homeowner, a woman, got out by herself but bystanders had to prevent her from going back in, Yellow Springs police said.
The woman was taken to Soin Medical Center in Beavercreek, and then transferred by CareFlight to Miami Valley Hospital. Her name, age and condition has not been released.
The name of the man who died in the fire also has not been released.
Powell said there were multiple 911 calls about the fire, including from the homeowner who reported the man in his 20s was trapped. Crews initially were able to go in the back of the house, but the intense flames made it unsafe for firefighters and unlikely anyone was still alive inside, Powell said.
“There were no smoke detectors that were activated,” said Powell, who urged residents to buy smoke detectors and change batteries.
In addition to Miami Twp. Fire-Rescue, fire crews from Cedarville and Xenia townships and Husted responded, Powers said. Also on scene were the Yellow Springs Police Department and Greene County Coroner’s Office.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, and no damage estimate was available but the structure is a total loss, Powell said.
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Yellow Springs Community rallies after fatal fire
By Carol Simmons
Published: September 6, 2018
Nearly a week after a local house fire claimed the life of a Yellow Springs man and hospitalized an elder relative, fire officials continue to investigate the cause, while the community rallies around the grieving family.
The Greene County Coroner’s Officer on Monday confirmed the death of Trevor A. Nared, 26, in the Friday, Aug. 24, fire at 1436 Glen View Drive.
The exact cause of death will not be known, however, until toxicology tests are completed, in eight to 10 weeks, according to William Harden with the coroner’s office.
Nared, who has been described as disabled, lived in the Glen View Drive home with his grandmother, Barbara Coffey, and mother, Ginnifer Amey.
Coffey, the homeowner, was taken to Soin Medical Center in Beavercreek, and then by medical helicopter to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, for smoke inhalation, according to fire officials. She remained hospitalized Tuesday evening; her condition was not availalbe to the public.
Amey, an employee of the Village, was not at home when the fire started.
In the days following the blaze, community members have stepped in to help the family with an online GoFundMe website page (gf.me/u/ks3ynf) and a Coffey Family Fund account at Wesbanco Bank. Five percent of donations through GoFundMe go to the site. Those wishing more information about contributing to the bank fund may call 937-760-5000.
Ginnifer Amey’s co-workers with the Village are helping as well, according to Ruthe Ann Lillich, administrative assistant and human relations officer in the village manager’s office.
Amey, who moved back to Yellow Springs from Tennessee this summer after her husband died in June, was recently hired here as a water/wastewater plant operator.
“Because she has only been with us a few weeks, she has not had time to accrue paid time off, Lillich wrote in an email.
“Employees are donating our sick time hours to her in order to assure she receives full paychecks. We also have a donation envelope for employees to contribute financially to her.”
Co-workers and Village Manager Patti Bates were all on the scene Aug. 24 as fire crews battled the blaze.
“We have all been impacted by her tragedy and are pulling together as a family to support her,” Lillich wrote.
According to Miami Township Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief Denny Powell, the first of multiple 911 calls came in at 11:15 a.m. reporting a structure fire with at least one person trapped inside.
Neighbors, passersby and a group of village workers who had been on a job nearby were already on the scene when Powell arrived with two fire crew members in the chief’s car at 11:25 a.m., the assistant chief said. The three had been at the Cresco construction site, on the northwest side of the village, doing a pump test when the call came in, Powell said.
Private citizens had helped Coffey, 72, get out of the house, but the smoke was too intense to go back in to help Nared, according to witness accounts.
Powell said firefighters were met by “very heavy smoke from the structure and a lot of heavy flames coming from the front.” They were able to enter the house from the rear, but unable to rescue Nared.
Along with Miami Township Fire and Rescue, fire crews from Xenia Township, Cedarville Township and Hustead also responded through mutual aid.
The fire was mostly extinguished by 1 p.m., and declared fully “terminated and cleared” at 5:09 p.m ., Powell said.
A family dog and cat survived, but two other dogs and some chickens died, according to a relative at the scene. A pet turtle was reportedly found in the back yard several days later.
Powell said the cause of the fire has not been determined, and fire officials are seeking video or photographs of the scene to help in their continuing investigation.
Assistant fire Chief Powell echoed the tragedy’s impact on the fire crew, most of whom had never dealt with a fire-related death before.
“Our ultimate goal is saving somebody’s life,” Powell said.
The family has faced tragedy before. Barbara Coffey’s son (Amey’s brother), Jonathan Coffey, died in a 2005 car crash at the age of 25; and Coffey’s husband, (Amey’s father), Robert Coffey, died four years ago at 66, according to newspaper records.
UPDATE: Investigators clear scene of fatal suburban Boynton crash, all lanes now open
Updated 10 hours ago
By Julius Whigham II, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
BOYNTON BEACH, FL —
Update 6:30 p.m.: All lanes have been reopened at intersection of Woolbright Road and Hagen Ranch Road, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said.
Two people were killed in a traffic crash at the intersection Monday afternoon, the sheriff’s office said
Original story: A vehicle crash in suburban Boynton Beach killed two people Monday afternoon, snarling traffic in all directions as the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office traffic-homicide units investigated.
Investigators were called shortly before 12:30 p.m. to the intersection of Woolbright and Hagen Ranch roads.
The sheriff’s office confirmed that two people had been killed, but did not disclose the name or gender for either person.
Brandon, Wisc.
A Green Lake County man died as the result of a medical
condition while driving a milk tanker truck near Alto Monday afternoon.
The Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office says the westbound milk truck
drove off County Road A-S approximately 40 yards into the cornfields
just west of State Highway 49.
A passerby noticed the truck in the
cornfield at 2:13pm and called 9-1-1.
First responders attempted C-P-R
but the 56-year-old Berlin man was later pronounced dead.
The crash
remains under investigation.
Names have not yet been released.
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Milk Truck Crash Caused by Medical Condition
24-Sep-2018
Fond du Lac County,
The Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office says a man is dead after a medical condition caused him to drive his milk truck into a corn field Monday afternoon.
Sheriff’s deputies along with Life Star Ambulance and the Brandon-Fairwater Fire Department were called to the scene around 2:13 pm after a passerby noticed the milk truck in the field and called 9-1-1.
Police say the 56-year-old man from Berlin was driving west on County Highway A-S when he suffered the medical condition.
The truck continued 40 yards into the field before coming to a stop.
CPR was started at the scene, but the man was later pronounced dead.
The crash remains under investigation.
