Trial delayed for Britons accused in oil spill

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Trial delayed for Britons accused in oil spill
By Sean Kimmons, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, February 5, 2008

MILDENHALL, England — The trial of two British contractors charged with triggering a massive jet fuel spill on RAF Mildenhall last April has been delayed in order to let a higher authority preside over it.

Mildenhall Magistrates’ Court officials on Monday decided to move the trial to April 15 — almost a year after the spill — so that a district judge could settle a preliminary issue on whether the company T. Clarke (Midlands) Ltd. should face punishment. The name of the district judge was unknown by Stripes’ deadline.

The British Environment Agency filed charges against contractors T. Clarke and Roy Clarke, no relation, for polluting controlled water after an underground JP8 jet fuel line was ruptured while they drilled a nearly 200-foot hole near a taxiway.

Roughly 44,000 gallons of jet fuel soaked into the ground in the April 20 incident. Only about 7,200 gallons of fuel have been recovered as part of a clean-up process that could take decades, EA prosecutor Anne-Lise McDonald said at a hearing last month.

The fuel contaminated the water table of a chalk aquifer found beneath the base. The aquifer holds much of the local area’s drinking water.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52210