PROVIDENCE – Two large gasoline refiners will pay the state about $1.1 million to resolve a lawsuit alleging they caused soil and groundwater throughout Rhode Island to be polluted with a toxic gas additive, R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha announced Wednesday.
As part of the settlement, Coastal Corp. will pay the state $940,000 and BP plc will pay $205,000 in principal to the state.
The settlement is in addition to the earlier $17 million agreement the state reached with other gasoline refiners, including Shell, Sunoco, CITGO, Hess, Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA Inc., Marathon and Conoco, for their roles in contamination caused by methyl tertiary-butyl ether.
In August, Rhode Island resolved a lawsuit against three large gasoline refiners, Chevron Corp., Irving Oil Corp. and Valero Energy Corp., for MBTE contamination for $1.8 million.
Litigation against Exxon Mobil is ongoing, according to Neronha’s office.
The lawsuits argue MBTE leaked from underground storage tanks such as those at gas stations and contaminated groundwater and soils. MTBE is considered a probable human carcinogen. Rhode Island banned the use of MTBE in 2007, but the substance continues to contaminate some groundwater in the state.
The attorney general said the companies knew or should have known that MTBE would be released into the environment and cause contamination in Rhode Island’s water supply, threatening public health and welfare as a result.
“MBTE contamination of public water supplies poses a significant public health and safety risk, one which oil and gas companies knew about well before the public did,” Neronha said in a news release. “The work to remediate contaminated water supplies continues, and the funds recovered to date, now totaling nearly $20 million, will be exclusively dedicated to doing that work.”
