Mecklenburg County commissioners approved a settlement Tuesday with the Colonial Pipeline Company, more than four years after a pipe burst beneath a Huntersville nature preserve, flooding the ground with some 2 million gallons of gasoline and other fuel.
The Aug. 14, 2020 spill on the Oehler Nature Preserve was the largest gasoline spill on land in the United States.
Under the terms of the settlement, the Colonial Pipeline Company will pay $600,000 into the county's Natural Areas Restoration Fund and continue clean up and restoration efforts on the land. In addition, the company must purchase a similar parcel of land and gift it to the county to make up for the loss.
Colonial is eyeing a 30-acre parcel of land on the north side of Davidson-Concord Road in Davidson, adjacent to the West Branch Nature Preserve, as a possible replacement property.
Elaine Powell and Susan Rodriguez-McDowell voted against it. Powell said she believed Colonial should pay more to the county's restoration fund.
"The amount going to habitat restoration is not enough," Powell said. "Everybody did really good work on this, and so I understand that this is the best that could be done. It's just not enough."
In 2023, the company also agreed to pay the state of North Carolina nearly $5 million in penalties and pledged to increase testing at the site and develop a long-term cleanup plan.
That same year, state regulators gave Colonial the go-ahead to build a wastewater treatment plant on site so it doesn't have to truck contaminated water to another location. The company said it would spend $23 million to build the plant, and then pipe the treated water into a nearby creek.
The cleanup is expected to continue for years. Colonial operates a 5,500-mile pipeline network from Texas to New Jersey.
