[StBernard] Murphy Oil cleanup dissatisfies some

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Thu Jul 20 22:14:56 EDT 2006


Murphy Oil cleanup dissatisfies some
Tests for soil toxins yield irregular results
Thursday, July 20, 2006
By Paul Rioux

Several months after oil seeped into their Chalmette home from a
million-gallon spill caused by Hurricane Katrina, Peter and Sylvia Fontana
reached a settlement with Murphy Oil USA rather than join a class-action
lawsuit against the company.

"A lawsuit could take 10 years, and we don't know if we'll be around that
long, because I'm 70 and my husband is 78," Sylvia Fontana said Wednesday
morning, standing on the porch of her gutted home on Marietta Street. "We
just wanted to move on with our lives as soon as possible."

But more than six months after the settlement, the couple says the company
isn't living up to its end of the bargain.

The agreement called for Murphy Oil to pay the couple $25,000, sanitize the
interior of their home and clean the yard if soil samples showed dangerous
levels of toxins.

Sylvia Fontana said the company paid the money and cleaned their house but
has refused to clean the yard, citing tests that showed the soil is safe.

But the couple questions the test results, noting that the company cleaned
their neighbor's yard and several others down the block.

"It must be smart oil," Sylvia Fontana said. "It jumped from my neighbor's
yard over mine and went down the street."

A spokeswoman for Murphy Oil did not return a phone message seeking comment
Wednesday.

Flooding during Katrina's immediate aftermath dislodged an above-ground
storage tank at Murphy's refinery in Meraux, releasing more than 25,000
barrels of crude oil into the surrounding area, including about 1,800 homes.


In January, U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon consolidated 27 lawsuits
against the company into a class-action suit. The trial is to begin Oct. 2.

The Fontanas and a group of neighbors who reached settlements with Murphy
Oil sent a letter to the company Tuesday asking it to release a plan for
cleaning up all yards on Marietta Street by July 28.

"It just does not make sense that some yards on our street have such high
toxic chemical levels to warrant cleanup, but ours do not," homeowner
Leatrice Zoerner wrote in the letter.

Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade environmental group,
said the company has cleaned yards at five of 38 homes in a two-block
stretch of Marietta Street north of Judge Perez Drive.

"It's a totally random checkerboard pattern with no rhyme or reason as to
why a property was cleaned or not," she said.

Several residents who reached settlements with Murphy Oil said the company
offered to pay about $12 per square foot and $2,500 per household member.
They said this translated into payouts of $20,000 to $50,000 for most
homeowners who settled.

. . . . . . .

Paul Rioux can be reached at prioux at timespicayune.com or (985) 645-2852



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