Back to back Mount Douglas Rams B.C. champs second year running. Page A24
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NEWS: Seeking science in sewage /A3 COMMUNITY: Wold’s best wildlife photos /A5 ARTS: Hitchhikers Guide in court /A18
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SAANICHNEWS Wednesday, December 5, 2012
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Oil spills on the home front Heating oil tanks: unregulated, uninsurable, and homeowners are on the hook for leaks
“We’re kicking ourselves now – it was an old tank, why didn’t we just replace it? For $2,000 we could’ve avoided a ton of grief.” – Keith Phillips
Kyle Slavin Reporting
L
ast year, the average Canadian household spent $1,400 on expenses at Christmas. Keith and Susanne Phillips can only dream of a holiday season so cheap. The Saanich couple was left with a $48,000 cleanup bill when their home heating tank failed mere days before Christmas 2011, pouring upwards of 1,000 litres of oil into the soil on their property. “We had the tank topped up, around 800 litres, on (Dec. 21). By the next morning (the tank) was dry and the furnace wouldn’t turn on,” recalls Keith. “There was a hole in the tank smaller than my little finger. You couldn’t even see a hole, at first.” Nobody knew the age of the steel oil tank aside the house on Phillips’ Ambassador Avenue property. Keith says it could’ve been anywhere between 20 and 50 years old. Either way, it had been sitting long enough that oil corroded the tank from the inside, ultimately rupturing on Dec. 21. “We had a platinum protection
Kyle Slavin/News staff
Keith Phillips now has a heating oil tank with a leak alarm after his last one spilled some 1,000 litres of oil onto his property in December 2011. Keith and his wife, Susanne, were left with a $48,000 cleanup bill as their home insurance company denied coverage. plan where (our oil company) would do sonic testing of the tank to check the thickness of the walls. We were also using their oil that’s supposed to have additives in it that retards corrosion,” Keith says. “We were sort of relying on that plan, to some extent, to give us a head’s up if something was up. At the end of the day that didn’t help us out. We’re kicking ourselves now – it was an old tank, why didn’t we just replace it? For $2,000 we could’ve avoided a ton of grief.” Cleanup of the property began immediately after the spill. Crews and backhoes dug out oil-saturated earth, and trucks, tractors,
hazmat vehicles and cement mixers used their property as a parking lot. And on Day 1 of remediation, the Phillips’ insurance company delivered the bad news. “Our insurer said, ‘This is the escape of pollutants clause in your home insurance.’ They wouldn’t cover any of it,” Keith says. Most insurance coverage for homes with oil heating includes a pollution exclusion clause, which states the insurer won’t cover losses or damages caused by contamination or the release of pollutants. “Do you carefully read all the clauses before you sign your (home insurance) policy?” asks
Elizabeth Adjin-Tettey, an associate dean in the faculty of law at the University of Victoria and an instructor of insurance law. “Most of us don’t even know that we have those clauses in our contract.” Insurance companies have pollution exclusion clauses to avoid being exposed to costly oil spill scenarios, but some policies cover homeowners in the event oil leaks onto a neighbouring property. Naomi Kovak, with UVic’s Environmental Law Clinic, says re-examining such clauses and changing insurance requirements would be a step toward proactive spill prevention.
“Even where they do not have such an exclusion clause, recent case law would suggest that property owners might still find themselves without coverage,” Kovak wrote in a recent report, co-authored with fellow student Trevor Johnson. “Other jurisdictions have passed regulations requiring the insurance companies to at least offer pollution coverage, though they still leave it up to the individual homeowner whether or not to purchase it.” Kovak and Johnson’s report, entitled Preventing Home Heating Oil Spills in British Columbia, focused on seven suggested provisions. Their recommendations would, overall, protect the environment through prevention, and take part of the onus off homeowners, should a spill occur. Among the recommendations are: improved physical requirements for tanks and equipment; limiting the length of time a tank can be in use; regulating oil delivery; inspection and monitoring requirements; tank decommissioning requirements; and direct economic incentives for homeowners to change heating fuels. “I think the ultimate solution here is provincial changes. This is not a Victoria problem, it’s not a Saanich problem, it’s a B.C. problem,” Kovak says. PLEASE SEE: Few regulations, Page A8
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