By Mike Kruzman / news@whmi.com


Brighton City Council had a discussion with high-ranking members of Corrigan Oil about what went wrong and what is changing following the August fuel spill into the Mill Pond.

Just after midnight on August 24th, a Corrigan driver had an incident where roughly 200 gallons of fuel was projected out of the primary containment area, making its way into the Second Street storm sewer and then the Mill Pond. The appropriate authorities were all quickly contacted and as cleanup efforts ensued, City Manager Nate Geinzer said at the time, that he was very pleased with Corrigan’s response.

Brighton City Council had recently requested a discussion with Corrigan Oil about the incident, which occurred during their meeting, Thursday night.

Owner Tim Corrigan said they are working to ensure that something like this never happens again. He told Council, “People, community, environment are first and foremost in our company and our philosophy each and every day. We don’t take anything like this the least bit lightly in any way, shape or form. And we have certainly made many steps to make sure that we will not have an incident such as this again. We have been in this facility here for over 35 years and this is the first one that we’ve had. And I certainly hope there’s no repeat of this or any other type of incident for 35-plus years.”

Joining Corrigan was his Head of Safety and Emergency Response Team, Roger Hayes. Hayes said that the final containment measures were removed from the Mill Pond on September 10th, with no contamination detected at the area or downstream.

It is believed that the accident occurred because the operator had not used the Camloft safety straps on the driver’s side. As a result of the incident, Hayes said Corrigan will implement their supervisor verification process for unloading at their facility. Hayes described the process, saying, “Every time we offload any product at this facility, there will be a verification process, which we already use in other areas of our business. So in its essence what takes place is, not only the operator is responsible for the appropriate offloading of the equipment, also the person who is verifying what they’re doing is every bit as responsible for the appropriate offloading of that equipment.”

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, & Energy is expected to issue their report on the incident later this month.

City Council was pleased with Corrigan Oil’s response, transparency, and sparing of no expense to fix the accident. Corrigan thanked them for recognizing that but added that all of that was exactly what they were supposed to do and should have done.