State officials have filed criminal misdemeanor charges against the general manager and two other employees at the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corp. related to an oil spill under staff housing at the Cannery Creek Hatchery in December of 2013.
PWSAC’s general manager, David Reggiani Jr., acting hatchery manager Christine Mitchell and chief maintenance supervisor Dale Lords were ordered to appear for arraignment at the Alaska District Court in Cordova on Oct. 26 on charges of providing false information, failure to report a hazardous substance discharge and oil pollution.
Efforts to reach Reggiani regarding the incident failed.
The Cannery Creek Hatchery was built in Prince William Sound’s Unakwik Inlet, some 40 miles east of Whitter in 1978 by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Fisheries Rehabilitation, Enhancement and Development Division, to produce pink and chum salmon.
Documents filed with the state trial courts on Sept. 26 by Assistant Attorney General Carole Holley contend that Reggiani, Mitchell and Lords failed to provide or provided false information in the incident, failed to immediately notify the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation of the discharge, and permitted the discharge of petroleum and other substances in violation of state statutes.
The incident at the state-owned Cannery Creek Hatchery, which is managed by PWSAC, was initially reported to the U.S. Forest Service in Cordova on Dec. 13, 2013.
According to the charging document, hatchery maintenance supervisor Jason Vinyard told the Forest Service law enforcement office that the spill occurred on Dec. 10.
Vinyard said that according to his observations the spill resulted from a leaking fuel line from an above ground fuel tank leading to the crawlspace under a staff-housing unit. Vinyard discovered the spill while working on the housing unit’s boiler. He told authorities that he had found it empty several days after filling it the unit’s 500-gallon above ground fuel tank.
Vinyard said he had immediately reported the spill to Mitchell, who directed him to remove the contaminated soil from the crawl space and replace it with fresh dirt from the river. Vinyard said he also emailed the information to Reggiani, but received no reply.
Forest Service officials subsequently contacted the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, which had not received a report of the spill, and DEC notified Reggiani that the agency had received a report of a diesel fuel spill at the hatchery that was not reported properly.
Holley noted in the charging document that after Vinyard discovered the spill he had notified on-site employees that there was a dangerous situation at the house and told them to leave.
Holley said that during an interview with Mitchell, she said Vinyard had reported a fuel spill to her, but she discounted his reporting because she did not trust him.
However an incident report prepared by Vinyard on the spill provided notification, cause, corrective action and a detailed timeline of the spill. Vinyard resigned shortly after the incident occurred.
