Four Missing Hours and an Unapproved Plan: What the Records Show About the Wawa Spill
Public records obtained by Hardin Local reconstruct the night of the July 20 fuel spill at Elizabethtown's new Wawa: who was told, who was not, and the state's rejection of the plan for the fuel work. The full investigation is free to read with a Hardin Local account.
By Nathaniel Bryan and Phil Taul, Hardin Local
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When Hardin County dispatchers learned that an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 gallons of fuel had gone down a storm drain at Elizabethtown's new Wawa on the night of July 20, the call did not come from the store, from its contractor, or from anyone on the property.
It came from a deputy chief of the Kentucky State Fire Marshal's office, Shawn White, who had driven to the site himself. He told the dispatcher he had been called because a cleanup crew had already arrived at the Wawa and found nobody there.
"I don't think we got notified about that," the dispatcher told him.
"Yeah, that's what I'm kind of gathering," White replied.
Minutes later, Hardin County 911 was on the phone with Elizabethtown Police, asking whether they knew about "a humongous fuel spill at the Wawa." They did not.
Those recordings, obtained by Hardin Local from the Hardin County 911 Center under the Kentucky Open Records Act, are part of a growing set of public records about the spill at 2500 Ring Road. This week the set grew again. On Wednesday, responding to another Hardin Local records request, the Kentucky Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction released a state letter showing that the hazardous-materials plan for fuel filtration work at the Wawa site was rejected because, in the state's words, "the work was performed prior to an approval issued by the plan reviewer." The department also confirmed that its incident investigation file on the spill exists but remains an unfinalized draft, which it withheld while the matter is open.
Here is what the records show, what the City of Elizabethtown and Wawa have said, and the questions that remain unanswered.
The full investigation below is free to read with a Hardin Local account. Creating one takes an email address and nothing else, no payment, ever.
