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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
EPA fines large Interstate 80 truck stop owner $390,000
The company lacked plans to contain catastrophic spills
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The owner of the Iowa 80 Truckstop east of Iowa City — which bills itself as the "world's largest truckstop" — has agreed to pay about $390,000 in fines because it failed to prepare for massive fuel spills that haven't happened, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The Iowa 80 Group owns two large truck stops near Walcott and Joplin, Mo., that each had aboveground storage capacities of about 1.2 million gallons of diesel fuel, gasoline and oils.
Such sites where catastrophic spills could "reasonably be expected to cause substantial harm to the environment" are required to have response plans, training programs and drills to prepare for them, the EPA said.
Iowa 80 and Joplin 44 did not when the EPA inspected the sites in March and April 2023, according to agency records.
Stormwater flows south from the Iowa 80 site, under Interstate 80, into a tributary of Mud Creek and, eventually, to the Cedar River after about 30 miles, the EPA noted in a recent settlement agreement with the company.
The fines are not tied to any large fuel spills, said Madelyn Bremer, an EPA spokesperson.
Both truck stops reduced their aboveground storage capacities to fewer than 1 million gallons after the inspections, which alleviates the strictest requirements for preparing for spills.
But the EPA still found their spill response plans to be in violation of Clean Water Act requirements and sought fines.
Heather DeBaillie, vice president of operations and marketing for the company, said Iowa 80 Group had developed the plans for many years with assistance from an engineering firm, but that the EPA determined there “was missing information and that firm’s staff had not signed it.”
“We have always had a secondary containment around our two big tanks that would (retain) all diesel on site in the event of a catastrophic tank failure,” DeBaillie told The Gazette. “Oddly, that is not required. Paperwork is.”
The Iowa site incurred a $204,000 fine, and the fine for the Missouri site was about $187,000.
The agency said the truck stops have revised their response plans, inspected tanks and repaired faulty equipment.
Comments: (319) 368-8541; jared.strong@thegazette.com
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