Methuen-Based Transportation Firm to Pay More than $60,000 to Resolve Fuel Spill Wetlands Damage

File photograph. (Image licensed by Ingram Image.)

Methuen-based P.J. Murphy Transportation was penalized more than $60,000 for spilling an estimated 10,000 gallons of gasoline and 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel April 17, 2020.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection said Friday the company was fined $8,625 and must also pay $52,746 to an environmental trust for the release of gasoline and diesel fuel from an overturned tanker truck owned by the company. The spill at the Brown Circle Rotary in Revere caused wetlands damage after entering a storm drain and discharged into Rumney Marsh, Diamond Creek and the Pines River. P.J. Murphy’s payment for the environmental restoration work will be made to the state’s Natural Resource Damages Trust.

“The law in Massachusetts pertaining to the releases of oil and or hazardous materials is quite clear that those who are responsible for spills of this magnitude, should be the first ones to bear the cost it will take to clean it up,” said Eric Worrall, MassDEP’s director at the Northeast Regional Office in Wilmington.

MassDEP estimated an area larger than 15 acres had been harmed by the release, causing injury to the aquatic ecosystem existing in the surface water, shoreline and various plants and animal habitat in the area.

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