The Nation - News from Nov. 24, 1988

The site of a fuel tank that collapsed early this year, fouling two major rivers with oil and threatening water supplies of communities in three states, was never inspected as claimed by a county official, Pittsburgh police said. Charles E. Kelly, 58, who was chief inspector in the Allegheny County, Pa., fire marshal’s office, told authorities he did not visit the tank owned by Ashland Oil as he had reported doing in a memo dated May 19, 1986, county Assistant Police Supt. Richard Winters said. Kelly has resigned. He refused to comment. More than 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the Monongahela River and later flowed into the Ohio River when a dime-size flaw in a steel wall caused the tank to collapse. The Jan. 2 accident occurred as the 40-year-old tank was being filled for the first time since being moved from the Cleveland area.