STATE, BARKLAGE IN LEGAL BATTLE OVER GASOLINE SPILL

The Missouri attorney general's office and the state's Department of Natural Resources are locked in a legal battle with Republican strategist David Barklage over a 1998 gasoline spill at a Cape Girardeau service station he owned.

Attorney General Jay Nixon's office filed the lawsuit on March 2, 2000, against Barklage, chief of staff to state Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, and Barklage's campaign consulting firm Target Media Consultants of Cape Girardeau.

The lawsuit is scheduled for a bench trial June 21 and 22 in Cape Girardeau County Circuit Court in Jackson, Mo., before Bollinger County Associate Circuit Judge Scott Thomsen.

Barklage and his Target Media firm owned Spanky's Texaco station at 2201 Broadway, where gasoline leaked from underground storage tanks in December 1998 and flowed into the city sewers. The vapor fumes reached "explosive" levels, the lawsuit states.

The DNR contends that at least 3,000 gallons of fuel leaked from the tanks.

If found liable, Barklage could face civil fines of up to $10,000 a day for every day of non-compliance.

Barklage said last year that the leak had been fixed. The service station remains in operation under new ownership.

Political gain

On Monday, Barklage accused the Missouri Democratic Party of leaking the lawsuit to reporters for political gain.

"The reason it is being reported now is that Democrats are angry at us for trying to reform the Senate," he said. "They have been faxing copies of the lawsuit all over the state."

But B.J. Atwater, executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party, said any lawsuit filed by the attorney general's office is a serious matter.

Atwater said Barklage's leadership role in the Senate can't be overlooked.

"He obviously, like every other citizen, needs to take responsibility," the Democratic Party leader said.

Barklage said he made every effort to address the problem.

"We did everything they told us to in terms of cleanup," he said from his Jefferson City office.

Barklage said the lawsuit is a standard practice by the state in trying to settle on an acceptable fine.

"You try to negotiate and then if you are unable to negotiate, you go to court," Barklage said, adding that he hoped the lawsuit would be settled before it gets to trial.

The DNR has handled close to 6,000 gasoline spills since the late 1980s, including spills from underground tanks, above ground tanks, bulk plants and vehicle accidents.

"In the majority of cases, people get their properties cleaned up without any penalty or any enforcement action whatsoever," said the DNR's Ed Galbraith, who supervises fuel tank requirements.

One of eight cases

Scott Holste, spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the case against Barklage is one of eight cases involving underground storage tanks currently in the courts.

Gasoline spills can contaminate groundwater, DNR officials said.

According to the lawsuit, the DNR inspected Spanky's Texaco on June 29, 1998, and found that Barklage and Target Media failed to provide "financial responsibility" for the site, failed to equip two underground storage tanks with petroleum release detection methods, failed to conduct annual tank tightness testing and failed to equip pressurized pipelines with line leak detectors.

A violation notice was filed six months prior to the spill. By Dec. 4 of that year, inspectors said that the defendants were continuing to violate federal regulations and had failed to begin any of the mechanical upgrades. The spill was discovered later that month.

By Jan. 27, 1999, the DNR reported that Barklage still hadn't met government requirements.

The lawsuit cites continuing violations throughout 1999. It accuses of Barklage and Target Media of "such a flagrant disregard for the protection of Missouri's environment that the defendants will certainly continue to violate the provisions of the underground storage tank law and rules unless restrained by the court."

Barklage, in court documents filed by Jefferson City lawyer David Taylor, has denied the charges.

Barklage said Monday he no longer operates the service station.

"We are no longer in the gas business directly," he said.

According to Cape Gir-ardeau city business license records, the service station on Broadway has been operated since July 1, 1999, by Broadway Retail doing business as Value Gas.

Barklage said he retains a financial investment in terms of the cleanup, which was part of the sale agreement with Broadway Retail.

But the lawsuit makes no mention of the current operator of the service station. DNR officials said Barklage and Target Media are still listed as owners of the service station on state records.