The city of North Pole, Alaska, used to have clean groundwater. But now, it’s the polar opposite.
According to a lawsuit filed by the city last week, two oil companies are responsible for polluting North Pole’s groundwater and some private drinking water wells with a mysterious chemical. The chemical, called sulfolane, leaked from an oil refinery that the lawsuit alleges was negligently operated — both by current refinery owner Flint Hills Alaska Resources, which is owned by Koch Industries, and former owner Williams Alaska Petroleum.
It’s been known since at least 2001 that the refinery was contributing to sulfolane pollution in the North Pole. But in 2009, Flint Hills discovered levels of the chemical that were “significantly higher than expected,” and began notifying homeowners in the surrounding area. It began a process of cleaning up the groundwater, but the costs proved to be too much. Earlier this year, the company announced it would cease operations because of the “enormous” expense of cleaning up the sulfolane.
Flint Hills has maintained that it is not the source of North Pole’s pollution. Instead, it blames the previous owners: Earth Resources of Alaska which owned the refinery until 1980; MAPCO, which owned it until 1998; and Williams Alaska Petroleum, which bought MAPCO and took over the plant until its sale to Flint Hills in 2004. Flint Hills spokesman Jeff Cook told the News-Miner that “the record is clear” on who caused the pollution: and notes that after discovering it, Flint Hills took extreme measures to provide clean water to the city, drilling new water wells “a cost of millions of dollars” and then donating the system to the city, free of charge.
Only Flint Hills and Williams Alaska are listed as defendants in North Pole’s lawsuit, but the city has indicated that more defendants may be added, according to the News-Miner.
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image credit Jason Rossiter
