News

Davis & Whitlock is investigating the circumstances surrounding, and representing clients impacted by, the August 14, 2020 discovery of a leak in the Colonial Pipeline in Huntersville, North Carolina, near the intersection of Huntersville-Concord Road and Asbury Chapel Road.  As of September 13, 2020, Colonial has estimated to federal regulators that at least 272,500 gallons, or approximately 6500 barrels, of gasoline has been released as a result of the leak. However, Colonial has not yet been able to recover all of this gasoline released into the environment.  The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) is requiring Colonial to, among other measures, sample residential drinking water wells within 1500 feet of the release to ensure that no gasoline constituents have reached drinking water supplies.   Colonial is also, under the direction of NCDEQ, monitoring surface waters, soils, and groundwater in the area around the pipeline release, and, as of September 15, 2020, has reported exceedances of North Carolina groundwater quality standards for, among other gasoline constituents, benzene. The location in the pipeline where the leak was detected was the subject of a previous “repair” in 2004.  For more information, please contact us at (828) 622-0044.

DEQ cites Colonial Pipeline for gasoline spill, material includes cancer-causing chemicals

Davis & Whitlock, in conjunction with the Mickel & Chapman law firm out of Conway, Arkansas, has obtained an settlement which will conclude litigation filed against the ExxonMobil Pipeline Company on behalf of residents of Mayflower, Arkansas arising out of the March 29, 2013, rupture of ExxonMobil’s Pegasus Pipeline, which captured national attention. On Good Friday, 2013, the Pegasus Pipeline ruptured in a residential subdivision in Mayflower, causing 5,000 barrels of heavy Canadian Tar Sands crude oil to flow into residents’ yards, under their homes, through the town of Mayflower, and into Lake Conway.  The rupture led to the evacuation and permanent displacement of many residents, the presence of toxic petroleum fumes in and around Mayflower for many weeks, and a year long clean-up which transformed much of Mayflower into an industrial work zone.  Davis & Whitlock is pleased to announce that the matter was concluded on terms that were satisfactory to the Plaintiffs.

On Friday, March 29, 2013, ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline, which transported heavy tar sands crude oil from Canada throughout the United States, failed in the middle of a residential subdivision in Mayflower, Arkansas, resulting in the release of thousands of barrels of heavy crude into the subdivision’s streets, residents’ yards, storm sewers, and Lake Conway, a 6,700 acre lake connected to several creeks and used for recreational fishing.  The rupture led to the evacuation and permanent displacement of many residents, the presence of toxic petroleum fumes in and around Mayflower for many weeks, and a year long clean-up which transformed much of Mayflower into an industrial work zone. 

Davis & Whitlock, along with a local Arkansas law firm Mickel & Chapman, filed suit on behalf of the Mayflower residents in April 2013. After two years of intensive litigation in a case that captured national attention, a settlement was achieved on terms that were satisfactory to the Plaintiffs and held ExxonMobil accountable for the Pegasus Pipeline Disaster.

Davis & Whitlock, PC, along with Alabama firms Friedman, Dazzio, Zulanas & Bowling, PC and the Cole Law Firm, is proud to announce the West Morgan – East Lawrence Water Authority began construction on a reverse osmosis filtration system in January of 2020.

This filtration system is the result of the settlement of a three-year long lawsuit against 3M, and will effectively filter out all types of PFAS chemicals from the Authority’s water intake, located on the Tennessee River downstream of 3M’s Decatur, Alabama plant. In so doing, it will bring residents of Lawrence and Morgan counties some of the cleanest water in the country.

For more information, see the linked article below:

Lawsuit funded water treatment plant being built in Lawrence County