The Hubris of Rubis and the 'None-of-your-Business' Bahamas Government

by Larry Smith

Following the recent gasoline spill at the Rubis station on Robinson Road, I decided to take a closer look at ground zero.

Cable Bahamas built its 13,000-square-foot customer service centre in the 1990s, on vacant land just west of what was then a Texaco service station. It was the company's original headquarters, and it also catered to tens of thousands of walk-in customers.

Now it stands empty and shuttered, following repeated evacuations due to dangerous fuel leaks and vapour releases at what is now a Rubis service station. The French petroleum distributor, Rubis, acquired Chevron/Texaco’s regional assets in 2012.

Entering the disused customer service building is like stepping onto the set of an apocalyptic movie - furniture, paper and wires are strewn over the floor, fixtures and wall panels are stripped, and there is an eerie pall of silence over everything. Although no gasoline odour is detectable, within minutes a visitor’s eyes start to water and burn.

“We drilled test wells around the perimeter of our building in early 2013,” Cable’s technical manager John Gomez, a former BEC engineer, told me. “We found a good two feet of pure gasoline in the wells. You could have pumped it straight into your car.”

A 20-year-old corroded dispensing pipe at the Rubis station led to the escape of thousands of gallons of gasoline into the ground from November 2012 to January 2013. The fuel accumulated at the water table and spread out in a subterranean plume that swept past the Cable building beneath Robinson Road and into the residential neighbourhood of Marathon.

The spill forced dozens of people working in the area to seek hospital treatment, and one Cable employee was left with serious on-going health issues. Many nearby residents were exposed to contaminated well water and toxic fumes for over 18 months, and Cable Bahamas says the commercial disruptions it faces are costing big time.

So Cable is suing Rubis for $15 million in damages. And the government, which did little or nothing to advise residents of their potential health risks, and which sat on an environmental report for over a year, now faces mounting public outrage over its studied indifference.

Fuel spills that affect public health and pollute the air, ground and water are not uncommon, either here or elsewhere around the world. They are one of those external costs associated with the petroleum industry that are never factored into the price we pay for fossil fuels. These costs have to be paid, and they represent a substantial hidden subsidy.

At Lynden Pindling Airport, for example, aviation fuel spills since the Second World War created a veritable lake of kerosene beneath the aircraft parking aprons, which the Nassau Airport Development Company recently had to remediate. The cost of this cleanup is not publicly known.

In the 1980s some two million gallons of fuel oil leaked from a BEC pipeline near the Blue Hills power plant, impacting the public wellfields. The fuel ignited on at least two occasions, causing fires which threatened the survival of the power plant itself.

At Clifton Pier, both the BEC power station and the oil companies' fuel dock have experienced spills over many decades. In 2002, then parliamentary candidate Phenton Neymour described the power plant as an "underground waste site” that not only had been leaking fuel into the sea for years, but risked “a large-scale explosion."

A BEC pipeline rupture on Carmichael Road discovered in 1995 was the subject of a successful Supreme Court action by affected residents in the early 2000s. And there have been at least a half dozen documented gas station leaks on New Providence. Fuel leaks and spills in the out islands are frequent, but less well documented.

 

In fact, recent testing at the Robinson Road site revealed another underground plume of gasoline, thought to have originated from a spill in the 1990s which affected many of the same Marathon residents who are involved today. Their recollection is that nothing was done about that spill at the time.

One of the most publicised fuel leaks in the United States occurred in 2006, when nearly 26,000 gallons of gasoline leaked from an Exxon station in Maryland over a period of 37 days. Hundreds of people subsequently sued Exxon for over $1 billion for the contamination of their wells, loss of property value, and physical and mental harm. And this is clearly what is in the back of Rubis’ mind.

.
After Cable Bahamas evacuated its customer service building on Robinson Road in January 2013, Rubis closed the service station next door and the Department of Environmental Health was notified. But nearby residents were never advised about the potential health risks they faced. 

 

This was despite the fact that monitoring wells on the north side of Robinson Road sampled as late as May 2013 contained high levels of benzene, a toxic cancer-causing chemical that is a component of gasoline.

One of the private wells tested was on the property of Richard and Adrianne Munroe, who said they first became aware that their home’s plumbing system was contaminated in late February 2013: 

 

“My husband was in the kitchen cleaning meat and when he turned on the faucet he noticed the strong smell of gasoline...The fumes were overpowering to such an extent that they burned my eyes and nostrils and made me feel dizzy,” Mrs Munroe reported in a court affidavit.

 

Rubis’ technical agents arranged for the Munroes to be connected to the city water supply and installed five product recovery and monitoring wells on the property, Mrs Munroe said. They also replaced a water heater, washing machine, and a water holding tank.

 

A month later the Munroes received a letter from the Department of Environmental Health advising residents that water samples were being collected from private wells around the service station. Residents were urged to connect to the city water supply, but there was no follow-up from any government agency for another eight months, according to Mrs Munroe.

 

In November 2013 representatives from the BEST Commission and a US consulting firm called Black & Veatch visited the area to compile information for an official report on the fuel leak. But “notwithstanding our expressed concerns,” Mrs Munroe said, "no action was taken by the government to alleviate the pain and suffering we were enduring (and) we received no further visits from any government agency."

 

According to John Gomez, the same team of government reps refused point blank to enter the vacated Cable Bahamas building because the gasoline fumes were so overpowering. Gomez said this indicated “serious concerns on behalf of the government as to the safety of the building almost a year after the initial spill."

 

But despite all this - and in the face of repeatedly ignored requests from Cable Bahamas for more information on the extent of the spill, the results of health risk assessments, and Rubis' remediation plan, the government allowed the Robinson Road station to reopen in July 2014, without certificates of approval as required by law. 

 

“Given that our building is regarded as unsafe, there is a real risk that the service station remains contaminated,” Gomez said. “Allowing the station to operate puts staff and customers at risk of harmful gases which are known to lead to long-term and sometimes fatal medical conditions. In order to properly decontaminate the affected area, remediation work for all properties must be conducted in parallel.”

 

Gomez also pointed out that if the contamination were to spread to Cable's nearby Processing Centre, the company would suffer irreparable damage, since the equipment in that facility could not be relocated. This would mean that Cable would be unable to provide communications services to its 80,000 customers.

 

From this abbreviated account, it should be clear to most that the Rubis fuel leak has caused considerable harm to residents and workers in the area. In a normal world this would have been a matter of urgent concern to public authorities - but that does not appear to be the case here.

 

The Black & Veatch report was not the only document suppressed by the government. The remediation plan prepared by Rubis and submitted to the Ministry of the Environment was also withheld. And Rubis has failed to provide comprehensive site assessment reports to Cable Bahamas, whose own environmental experts expect the problem to persist for five to 10 years.

 

“The logical implication to be drawn from Rubis’ failure to provide full disclosure is that Rubis has failed to take all proper remediation steps and/or that the (information) is too damaging to disclose,” Gomez said.

 

Ken Dorsett is the minister responsible for the Department of Environmental Health. According to the Environmental Health Services Act, he is "charged with the responsibility of promoting and protecting the public health and providing for and ensuring the conservation and maintenance of the environment.”

 

But Dorsett has cavalierly brushed aside any suggestion that he acted irresponsibly. "We weren’t trying to hide anything", he claimed. Between the Rubis spill, the Harrold Road landfill disaster, the long delay in bringing an environmental protection law to parliament, and the pitiful back-pedalling on renewable energy, Dorsett is building quite a legacy for himself.

 

Jerome Fitzgerald is a senior member of the cabinet and the MP for Marathon, where the Rubis station is located. One of the most vocal and in-your-face PLP candidates while in opposition, Fitzgerald has remained as quiet as a mouse, portraying himself as a victim, and claiming that his efforts to contact Rubis were fruitless. He also told the Nassau Guardian that he couldn’t discuss cabinet business in public.

 

In other words, my constituents will just have to get sick or die because whatever we politicians discuss is our business alone. And Fitzgerald, you may remember, is the government’s point man for the revised Freedom of Information Act. What a joke!

 

Allyson Maynard-Gibson is the attorney-general who took it upon herself to withhold the Black & Veatch report for over a year, with no coherent explanation given. As she is a lawyer-politico, the only reasonable rationale I can come up with is that she was trying to protect the liable party - for whatever reason - and was indifferent to the aggrieved parties - you know, the folks who live and work in the area.

 

Rubis, meanwhile, has had little to say on the matter other than to confirm it has been in “constant communication” with the government since the spill was discovered. This corporate disdain for customers and the public in general clearly shows that Rubis is focused solely on trying to limit its liability, apparently with the full weight of the government behind it. And you can read what you want into that.

 

Meanwhile, Cable Bahamas’ claim for damages, and its application for an injunction to prevent the Rubis station from operating until the effects of the spill have been properly addressed, are slowly wending their way through our byzantine court system. The Munroes are also suing Rubis for damages.

 

As for the people who live and work in the area and who continue to be subject to significant health risks and financial losses, they are simply shrugged off.

 

Comments

[anne lever]

I strongly suggest that we all get our gas from elsewhere!
As always, Larry, a most interesting and informative article. Thank you

[Linda J Thomson]

Yes we will now go to Shell for gas. Great article. I sincerely hope the Marathon residents can get full compensation from Rubis and government.

[Patrick Thomson]

Like so many things going on right now it is an absolute disgrace that the Government is unable to deal with any issues. Suggesting they resign is too good for them. Someone needs to take criminal action against some ministers and perhaps wake them up that their cavalier attitude is not to be tolerated. Maybe Nicole Burrows in her article today is right - the DNA will win the next election!!

[Stacey]

Sonetimes I just want to weep for this country and the suffering of its people because of the selfish actions of a few.

[philippa marshall]

The Comments are very well said. I know that the Bahamas could be the most beautiful set of islands in the world and Nassau, a true jewel. It is beyond sad, really outrageous that there is no accountability and nothing gets done.

[Jane]

Perhaps the time has come to stop storing petro chemicals and other dangerous chemicals underground. Maybe above ground double or triple walled grounded tanks with retaining walls would work better. I wonder what the U.S. EPA and the California environmental authority recommend.

[Sherrill Callender]

Sadly, an article that needed to be written. Thank you Larry for keeping us informed. Perhaps it will help to open up peoples' eyes to the shenanigans of this pathetic government and to keep in check and transparent all future governments. Who are the Bahamian principals in Rubis?? Shouldn't their names be made available to the public?

[R, Coulson]

GREAT STORY, LARRY.MOST DRIVERS ARE WITHIN EASY RANGE OF OUR TWO OTHER FUEL COMPANY STATIONS, SO i SUGGWST THEY JUST BOYCOTT RUBIS

[Simon Rodehn]

Rubis obviously left a B and a S off their name. You wouldn't find me buying from any of their stations. As for the politicos, we'll just say they seem to have all their hopes on getting the rubbish issues under control. The results I see thus far suggest their chances at survival will vaporize or go up in smoke along with the rest if us.