Kentucky, Oil Company Colluded To Keep Spill Settlement Secret
The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet and an Eastern Kentucky oil company agreed this month to keep secret a settlement related to a lawsuit over the company's repeated contamination of the Kentucky River.
The settlement proposal included a confidentiality clause that would have required cabinet officials and Childers Oil Co. to “forever remain silent at all times and places and under all circumstances” over the terms and even the existence of the settlement, according to The Courier-Journal.
The settlement proposal would have required Childers Oil to pay the state $48,057 for the company's diesel fuel spill on its property in Whitesburg in February 2011 that made its way into the North Fork of the Kentucky River. The leak caused a water advisory in the town that lasted three days.
The settlement amount represented $23,057 in costs the state incurred to react to the spill, as well as a $25,000 penalty.
The proposal was rejected on Sept. 18 by Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate, largely thanks to an oversight by the cabinet. The agreement was signed by a cabinet official, but not by an attorney representing the cabinet. Wingate also refused the confidentiality request in the proposal.
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