Companies To Pay $150,000 Fine After Jet Fuel Spill On Sand Island
The fuel escaped via the bottom of a storage tank. Operators detected the spill when noticing an “inventory discrepancy.”
Two companies involved in the storage of jet fuel on Oahu have agreed to pay a $150,000 penalty to the Environmental Protection Agency, part of a settlement for violating federal law aimed at preventing oil spills.
Those violations came to light in 2015 after some 42,000 gallons of jet fuel spilled at a Sand Island tank facility that’s currently operated by Signature Flight Support Corporation, according to an EPA press release.
Signature Flight distributes the fuel that’s stored in those 16 tanks to nearby Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. The tank facility is owned by a separate company, Hawaii Fueling Facilities Corp., according to the EPA. Those two companies agreed to pay the penalty.
A different company, Airport Service International Group, operated the fuel-storage facility when the spill occurred, according to media reports at the time of the incident.
Airport Service International Group determined that fuel had escaped from the bottom of the tank when it noticed an “inventory discrepancy” there, according to the EPA.
That violated the , which requires “sufficiently impervious” secondary containment for above-ground storage tanks, the release stated.
Airport Service International Group detected the spill in December 2014 but didn’t notify authorities until a month later, . The fuel leached into the ground and required an extensive cleanup effort.
In addition to the paying the fine, Signature Flight and Hawaii Fueling are required to install double-bottom floors on all of the tanks at the facility by 2028 and conduct more frequent inspections, according to the EPA.
