NEWPORT BEACH
The city has paid $2,500 to the Orange County Health Care Agency to settle a dispute over installing an underground fuel tank before it had been inspected.
“We got ahead of ourselves,” said Dave Niederhaus, the city’s general services director, “We should have waited until we had the permits in hand.”
Niederhaus added that the tank had not posed a health threat at any time. The city stored about 300,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel in three locations--City Hall, the police station and the city’s utilities yard on Superior Avenue.
The tanks at the yard had been retrofitted to comply with new regulations, Niederhaus said. But instead of waiting for an inspection of the improvements, the city moved on to the next phase of improving the tanks and installed an automated fuel pump system.
The district attorney’s office had originally filed a lawsuit, asking that the city be ordered to pay a penalty of $75,000. The district attorney’s office agreed to withdraw the suit after the city agreed to shoulder the cost for the agency’s extra administrative work.
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