US (IA): Greenhouse grower charged for oil spill
The oil leaked from the open spigot of a Krieger Greenhouses oil tank in mid-September. The above-ground tank holds up to 20,000 gallons of used motor oil – which was burned for heat – and about 4,000 gallons remained in the tank, the business reported at the time.
The oil flowed under Westwood Drive through two culverts and seeped into the river.
Workers scrambled for two weeks to remove the 800 gallons of oil, about 4,000 gallons of oily water and tons of dirt and sand from the river and nearby areas in a roughly 15-mile stretch from the West side of Jefferson. They used long, absorbent tubes to dam the river’s surface to keep the oil from flowing farther downstream.
“This has been the most labor-intensive spill I’ve ever seen,” Alison Manz, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources officer of 14 years who oversaw the cleanup, said at the time.
The spill was reported on Sept. 13 when a passerby saw oil in the river. Investigators eventually tracked the oil to Krieger Greenhouses.
Ernie Krieger, a co-owner of the business, initially downplayed the pollution in an interview with the Daily Times Herald. He later speculated that teen vandals caused the spill.
Krieger’s Greenhouses put advertisements in local newspapers that offered a $500 reward “for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those persons responsible for this act of vandalism.”
“We have very strong indications that this might have been done intentionally,” Andy Krieger, a co-owner of Krieger’s Greenhouses, told the Times Herald last year.
Andy Krieger alleged that high school students opened water spigots at houses in nearby neighborhoods that week, and that, “there’s a good chance” the students opened the valve on the tank as well.
Source:www.carrollspaper.com/Daily Times Herald
