A year after a 150-gallon kerosene spill, a tiny South Bristol church is completing repairs and trying to recoup damages.
The fuel spilled from a heater at the Union Congregational Church of South Bristol Parish House and Community Center in February 2011.
The church discovered the spill two days after a Damariscotta company, Mid-Coast Energy Systems Inc., performed maintenance on the building’s heating system.
Mid-Coast Energy Systems denied responsibility for the spill and blamed it on a defective heater component.
The church filed a lawsuit against Mid-Coast Energy Systems Dec. 15, 2011.
The church’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Peggy Dunn, and the chairman of the board, Steve Busch, recently met with The Lincoln County News to discuss the aftermath of the spill.
The damage forced the church to replace the floor, the joists and some of the furniture in Dunn’s office, as well as the ceiling and some walls in the basement below and some of the siding.
“This whole room was gutted,” Busch said, sitting on a new couch in the office.
“It’s a new room,” Dunn said.
The basement room usually serves as a storage area for donations to the church’s annual sale, and all the donations were disposed of. A bathroom next to Dunn’s office also required attention.
“The essential repairs are complete,” Busch said, but the basement room remains a “problem area.”
The fuel soaked into the room’s concrete floor and, despite extensive efforts to remediate the situation, a noticeable kerosene odor remains.
The church also decided to switch to propane heat for the building, a transition it completed this month.
“It’s been a long, long process,” Busch said.
A state insurance fund has paid for “all of the structural work,” Busch said. “We feel very fortunate about that.”
The fund doesn’t cover finish work, such as carpets, furniture and paint, however, and the church’s share of the bill totals almost $12,500.
“For a small congregation, as this one is, that’s a big hit to take,” Busch said.
The church has had to use funds set aside for other projects, like a paint job for the church and the parish house. “It’s been tough,” Busch said.
The church’s insurance company determined that human error on the part of Mid-Coast caused the spill.
Mid-Coast’s insurance company, meanwhile, hired an expert who attributed the spill to the heater. “Midcoast has denied liability, as has their insurance company,” Busch said.
In an e-mail to The Lincoln County News, Mid-Coast owner and President Bill Morgner said the company “has no comments to make” for this article.
Mid-Coast has refused to provide a copy of the expert’s report, Busch said. “I don’t know why they’re stonewalling us on it, but they certainly are,” he said.
Last fall, the church decided to pursue legal action. Michael McAllister, a young attorney sympathetic to the cause, offered his services pro bono.
The complaint against Mid-Coast, on file in Lincoln County Superior Court, alleges negligence on the part of the company “causing the kerosene spill and subsequent damage” and cites damages of $12,411.25.
Mid-Coast denied the allegations in a Dec. 19 filing. “The accident in question was caused by factors beyond the control of this Defendant,” according to the filing.
The church has requested a jury trial. Busch expressed a willingness to “get this sorted out before we go to court,” but holds out slim hope.
The church didn’t make the decision to sue lightly, Dunn said.
“It’s not what we’re about as a church,” she said. “It’s not where our energies ought to be pulled.”
“We’ve done what we can and DEP [the Department of Environmental Protection] has done DEP’s work and there were efforts to try to figure out some way to come to some kind of equitable solution about this,” Dunn said.
“The church has just been left holding the bag, so to speak, and that doesn’t seem right,” Dunn said. “This is really not our choice of the way to go.”
