By SDCNN Staff
On June 17, the city of San Diego and Kinder Morgan announced that they have entered into a settlement resolving all claims related to the historical contamination at the Qualcomm Stadium property.
The settlement provides for a $20 million payment to the city, and also includes an agreement by Kinder Morgan to cover additional, incremental costs, if any, incurred by the city in the redevelopment of the Qualcomm Stadium property or development of the groundwater beneath the property, that are caused by historical releases from the Mission Valley Terminal. This settlement ends nine years of litigation between the parties.
Kinder Morgan is the largest energy infrastructure company in North America and owns the Mission Valley Terminal, which is a liquid storage facility located just north of the Qualcomm Stadium property in Mission Valley. The Mission Valley Terminal has been in operation since the 1960s, and is the primary fuel distribution hub in San Diego County.
The dispute arises from releases of petroleum products dating as far back as the late-1980s and early-1990s, before Kinder Morgan purchased the Mission Valley Terminal. Although Kinder Morgan did not own the Mission Valley Terminal at the time of the earliest releases, the company accepted the legal responsibility to perform the remediation. According to Kinder Morgan, it has spent over $75 million remediating the Qualcomm Stadium property to meet the stringent cleanup standards established by the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
On May 4, 2016, the regional board declared: “The [cleanup standards] provide reasonable protection of beneficial uses and will not result in water quality less than prescribed in water quality control plans and policies adopted by the State Water Board and the San Diego Water Board,” and that Kinder Morgan has met those standards.
“This is a big day for the city of San Diego and Kinder Morgan,” City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said in a press statement. “The Mayor and City Council’s approval of the settlement finally resolves this dispute after three decades. We thank the regional water board for its work on this matter. … We particularly appreciate the substantial time and money which Kinder Morgan has put into the cleanup over the years and the company’s continuing commitment to cover additional redevelopment costs should there be any due to historical releases. The city recognizes Kinder Morgan as an important past and future corporate partner in the city of San Diego and is pleased to put this behind us.”
“I’m glad to put this behind us so we can move forward with future opportunities for Mission Valley,” Mayor Faulconer added.
Kinder Morgan delivers essentially all of the gasoline products used in the city and surrounding areas. In addition to the Mission Valley Terminal, the company is also building five tankers in San Diego.
In May, Kinder Morgan celebrated the delivery of the Magnolia State, a tanker it describes as “one of the most fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly tankers in the world and symbolizes the emerging future of green shipping.” The Magnolia State was built at General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego and is the second of five tankers Kinder Morgan will build in San Diego, which adds an estimated 500 jobs and over $200 million to the local economy.
