Here in Charleston, coal-moving billionaires Kinder Morgan have recently installed sprinklers to keep the dust down at their coal pile on Shipyard Creek, a resignation no doubt directly tied to their hopes to expand. It’s a sign of life, but unfortunately for them, a ship at their terminal is the likely culprit for a recent oil spill. (Scroll back to Nov. 22 and read about it on the Truffula Seed).
In addition to being habitual air and water crudder-uppers, Kinder Morgan recently reached a settlement with the Tennessee Valley Authority and the federal government following allegations that the firm had been stealing from the folks they supply coal to.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Texas company has agreed to pay $25 million in costs and penalties to settle claims that it sold nearly 259,000 tons of coal belonging to the Tennessee Valley Authority from its shipping terminals in Illinois and Kentucky.
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP will also pay TVA a total of $8 million as part of the settlement.
An investigation by the TVA inspector general’s office and the FBI alleged that Houston-based Kinder Morgan skimmed off TVA coal stockpiles at Kinder Morgan terminals in Rockwood, Ill., and Grand Rivers, Ky., between 1999 and 2001.
Kinder Morgan, one of the country’s largest energy storage companies, issued a statement saying it believed it was “entitled” to sell the coal as surplus under its contracts.
Knoxville-based TVA, the country’s largest public utility serving 8.7 million consumers in seven Southeastern states, says it was shortchanged on coal shipments to its power plants in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama.
Kinder Morgan, TVA and U.S. Attorney Courtney Cox in Springfield, Ill., signed court papers Wednesday settling the case “without any admission of liability by KM and without any concession by the United States that its claims are not well-founded.”
TVA Inspector General Richard Moore remained convinced the work of his special agents and auditors, acting on a tip from an individual, with the FBI made the difference.
“I believe their efforts in finding and analyzing the evidence led directly to Kinder Morgan agreeing to this settlement,” Moore said, calling it “the largest total recovery” in the history of his office.
Under the settlement, Kinder Morgan agreed to pay TVA $6.6 million for actual losses on its coal and $1.4 million for the cost of the inspector general’s investigation.
Kinder Morgan will pay the federal government $19.8 million in penalties _ equal to three times TVA’s actual losses. It also will reimburse several private customers $5.2 million.
Investigators alleged Kinder Morgan exploited variations in the scales at the Cora Terminal in Illinois. Coal arriving by rail weighed less than coal leaving by barge. That resulted in a small surplus at the terminal, which Kinder Morgan sold as its own “Red Lightning” coal.
At the Grand Rapids Terminal in Kentucky “where certified scales were used for both incoming and outgoing coal, it is alleged that KM simply took coal from customer stockpiles,” Moore’s office said in a statement.
Kinder Morgan insisted that under its contracts it “bore the risk of coal losses resulting from moisture loss and scale inaccuracies” and that “during the period of time in question, each customer at the terminals received at least as much coal back from each terminal as it delivered to the terminal for storage and handling.”
I’m Kindah Morgan! I do what I want! My momma ain’t home!
Did I mention that Kinder and Morgan are both ex-Enron goons and buddies of Bush? Can this whole gang of over-privileged douchebags please be required to take a lesson in personal responsibility? In every frigging case, whether they settle or flat out lose with six felonies, these guys never say they’re sorry.
