Duke Energy apologizes for 2014 Ohio River diesel spill

CINCINNATI — Duke Energy President Charles Whitlock stepped before a federal judge Tuesday afternoon, second on the docket behind a man accused of trafficking methamphetamine.

Whitlock entered a guilty plea on behalf of the energy company for allowing a 9,000-gallon diesel spill — the volume of a standard tanker truck — into the Ohio River in August 2014.

The spill occurred at a coal-powered electricity plant — the W.C. Beckjord Station in Clermont County's Pierce Township — located about 20 miles upstream from Cincinnati.

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In the plea agreement, Duke acknowledged that company employees were negligent when they allowed a valve that was supposed to be clean and closed to be open, creating an environmental emergency that required "significant" government and private resources and threatened public health, court documents show.

The error will cost Duke Energy more than $2 million, including a $1 million fine and a $100,000 donation to the Foundation for Ohio River Education, a non-profit that teaches children about the waterway. The company already paid approximately $1 million in restitution to the agencies and groups that helped with cleanup and response to the spill.

Duke also agreed to a public apology, which will be published in The Cincinnati Enquirer.

"Our highest priority is to operate our system as safely as possible," Whitlock told the judge on Tuesday. "What happened at the Beckjord plant in 2014 did not meet our expectations."

Oil sheen could be seen for miles

It was on Monday, Aug. 18, 2014, when Duke Energy reported a 1,000-gallon diesel spill at Beckjord.

As we now know, the estimate would increase ninefold and result in a guilty plea to a criminal misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act.

The spill impeded commerce — the U.S. Coast Guard halted boat traffic for roughly 24 hours.

And it threatened public health — Greater Cincinnati Water Works and Northern Kentucky Water District closed drinking water intakes for a day, too.

"There was a lot of anxiety over the spill," said Greg Roberts, who was transitioning into village administrator in New Richmond, just a few miles upriver. "I was in the office and Governor Kasich called and expressed his concern."

Fortunately, "the event was really a non-event" for New Richmond, Roberts said, because it's upstream.

Not so downstream, where an oil sheen stretched down the river for 15 miles, the outer edge visible from the Interstate 471 bridge near downtown Cincinnati and the river cities of Northern Kentucky.

Problem valve was 'rusted open'

The cleanup included installing an oil containment boom, a rubber tube that attempted to keep the diesel from floating downstream. More than 35 agencies assisted in the response.

In the end, workers were able to remove less than 20% of the spill, or about 1,700 gallons.

What's unfortunate is the accident was preventable, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Benjamin C. Glassman told reporters at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

A Duke Energy employee was transferring diesel oil from a reserve tank to a "day tank" when the spill occurred. The latter is the tank where oil needed to run plant operations for a day is stored.

These tanks were surrounded by a secondary containment area, designed to capture any oil that might spill.

That secondary containment area was equipped with a valve to the Ohio River that would release any clean water — rain, or storm runoff — that might accumulate.

"The valve turned out to be rusted open," Glassman said. "We are not sure how long it had been open for."

While no significant economic or environmental impacts are known from the spill, the company's negligence threatened the environment and public safety, Glassman said.

"Folks really need to spend the time and money to make sure that the systems that they have in place to prevent these problems actually work," Glassman said.

Glassman said the penalties should act as a warning to other companies. A spokesperson could not say how the $1 million fine compares to penalties in other oil spills, because she could not recall any other cases of this magnitude reviewed in the region.

Duke says it's learned its lesson

Duke Energy officials said Tuesday that they took responsibility for the accident when it happened and continue to do so now with the guilty plea.

"We have used the accident as an opportunity to learn and improve," reads the statement released by Duke, which is based in North Carolina and provides electric service to 840,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in Ohio and Northern Kentucky.

The company said it has "worked hard to further strengthen our processes, training and emergency plans at our facilities," in light of the Beckjord mishap.

The plant was retired a few months after the spill. That was the plan all along, said Duke officials, although the spill might have sped up the process.

The site is being decommissioned, and Duke hopes to have all the structures down within five years. Restoration of the land will occur after that, spokesperson Sally Thelen said.

But challenges at Beckjord remain, said Paul Braasch, director of the Clermont County Office of Environmental Quality.

The county is awaiting the release of Duke's restoration plan, which includes what to do with coal-ash pits on the property, he said.

County officials want the company to remove the ash from the ponds and place the material in a lined landfill, rather than cap the site and leave it in the floodplain.

"My opinion, they are going to take the option to leave them there," Braasch said. "But what happens if there is a major breach of those ponds? It could contaminate the Ohio River and drinking water supply."

Thelen said Duke hopes to release its plan sometime in the first half of 2017.

Follow Carrie Blackmore Smith and Patrick Brennan on Twitter: @CarrieSmithENQ and @PBrennanENQ