Lawsuit filed over Gunnison gas leak
By John Hales
1-30-08

GUNNISON—Whether or not Wind River Petroleum was responsible for forcing a Gunnison resident out of her prominent business is now a matter for a jury to decide.
Attorneys for Lila Lee Christensen, proprietor of Lila Lee Apparel, filed a lawsuit in 6th District Court last week that alleges Top Stop and its parent company, Wind River, knew or should have known about last summer’s gas leak long before it happened.
Christensen claims she had to shut her business’s doors because of last July’s 20,000-gallon leak, at a cost easily reaching more than $2 million, though the lawsuit never specifies an exact amount.
Christensen says that fumes from the underground leak permanently damaged an estimated $1.7 million worth of inventory, but that the gasoline also ruined the property upon which the business sits, caused lost revenue into the foreseeable future, and perhaps jeopardized Christensen’s health.
As demanded by the lawsuit, jurors will decide how much that all adds up to.
But first, they will have to decide whether Wind River, Top Stop and two other defendants should have to pay anything at all.
Wind River has until now denied Christensen’s claim for damages, saying that the amount she wanted was “so far-fetched that it made no sense,” Craig Larson, Wind River’s president, said last week.
Larson called the lawsuit “unfortunate,” and said he had been willing to work with Christensen.
“We tried to communicate with Lila Lee and tried to find a resolution to the matter, and she chose not to. That’s her prerogative, I suppose,” he said.
Christensen and her attorneys see things differently. The lawsuit states, “Although Wind River is wholly to blame for Lila Lee’s situation, Wind River has refused to take responsibility. Accordingly, Lila Lee has been forced to resort to the judicial process to hold Wind River accountable.”
The lawsuit seeks to show that Wind River acted negligently, recklessly and perhaps even at times willfully with regard to the Gunnison Top Stop’s gas leak.
For support, it cites Wind River’s actions relative to July’s leak, but also what it calls “a long history of non-compliance with federal and Utah laws,” both in Gunnison and other locations.
Much of the 53-page complaint is devoted to listing instances when the state’s Department of Environmental Quality found Top Stop to be non-compliant with laws and regulations.
Nine such times were cited for the Gunnison store alone between 1995 and 2007. Several other times were mentioned relating to other Top Stop stores in Utah.
Larson said those instances don’t show negligence, and are in fact the process by which the DEQ requests information from companies. “It’s a lack of understanding on how the state asks for information on things,” he said. “We’ll show that in court.”
The lawsuit alleges that two of Top Stop’s underground tanks in Gunnison failed a leak test in 1997, but that Wind River did not report even a suspected leak. It was the same kind of test that the tanks failed in July, which led to Top Stop reporting the leak last August.
The lawsuit also refers to four other instances of leaking underground tanks at Top Stop stores, including one at the Ephraim store several years ago.
In each case, the lawsuit gives examples to show that the DEQ had a difficult time getting Top Stop to comply with standard and appropriate cleanup procedures.
The climactic portion of the complaint, however, is a recitation of Top Stop’s actions last summer.
It states that in July, one of Top Stop’s tanks became completely empty for the first time in the entire 15 years that Wind River had owned the store. Would-be customers drove up to a sign saying the service station was out of gas.
Wind River refilled the tank. Again it became emptied, and again it was refilled.
According to federal and state law, “unusual operating conditions,” such as a sudden loss of product from storage tanks, automatically constitutes suspicion of a leak, and must be reported to the DEQ within 24 hours.
No such report was made.
Then, the lawsuit states, Wind River attempted to shut down the Gunnison store without reporting the leak, and thus avoid responsibility to clean it up.
On Aug. 2, Top Stop submitted a plan to close the store to the DEQ. The plan did not mention any gas leak, and was signed by Top Stop officials on July 31.
On Aug. 9, state inspectors investigated—after several calls had been made to them—vapors at Lila Lee’s, which sits across the street from the Top Stop.
While at Lila Lee’s, they noticed a tanker sitting at Top Stop. They discovered fuel from the underground tanks was being pumped into the tanker for delivery at other Top Stop stores.
Later that same afternoon, state officials received a report that an overnight tank tightness test the previous day showed a large release of gasoline.
The monthly inventory test (statistical inventory report, or SIR) that showed the amount of the leak to be 19,272 gallons was not dated until Aug. 13.
“Wind River still has not disclosed or provided to the state a copy or evidence of an overnight tank tightness test performed on the night of Aug. 8,” the lawsuit states.
Larson declined to say much about the case, instead referring to the company’s attorney.
“Their allegations are completely false, and we’ll prove that,” was all he said.
“There’s a lot of good, positive things happening. We feel good about that. And we’ll handle the lawsuit until it’s resolved. We’ll continue to be responsible and clean up down there,” Larson said.
According to one of Christensen’s attorneys, Jared Inouye with the law firm of Bennet, Tueller, Johnson and Deere, this may be only the first case arising out of the disaster.
“In addition to Lila Lee, we represent other people down there,” Inouye said. “There’s a possibility that complaints for those other people will be filed as well.”