The Non-Financial Ledger

This isn’t a story about paperwork. This is about the quiet violence of corporate negligence. For at least 1,300 days, people lived, worked, and sent their children to play near Inland Fuel’s Bridgeport Facility, completely unaware that a 10,000-pound propane tank was sitting there without a federally mandated safety plan. This is a profound violation of the social contract. A corporation quietly decided that its operational convenience, its bottom line, was more important than a community’s fundamental right to safety and peace of mind. The cost of their inaction was passed on to the public in the form of invisible, daily risk.

A Risk Management Plan, or RMP, is not corporate bureaucracy. It is a company’s solemn promise to a community, codified in law, that it has thought through the absolute worst-case scenario and has a plan to prevent it. It’s the bare minimum a company does to prove it isn’t gambling with people’s lives. By failing to file one for three years, Inland Fuel made its position clear: “Your safety is an externality. Your lives are a rounding error.” Every single day that tank sat there, unvetted and unaccounted for by regulators, was another spin of a roulette wheel that the community never agreed to play.

The rot goes deeper than a missed deadline. The EPA documents that Inland Fuel also failed to compile basic safety information on its own equipment. They couldn’t, or wouldn’t, document that their hardware complied with “recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices.” This is where simple negligence bleeds into active contempt. It suggests a corporate culture where safety is not a built-in priority but a reactive chore, an annoyance to be dealt with only when the government shows up. It begs the question: what else were they not inspecting? What other corners were cut while they profited from storing a five-ton bomb in someone’s backyard?

The true damage is measured in the “what if.” What if there had been a leak? A fire? A catastrophic explosion, known as a BLEVE, that could have leveled buildings and taken lives? First responders would have arrived on scene with no RMP to consult, flying blind into a disaster that was preventable. The community’s survival would have depended not on responsible corporate stewardship, but on dumb luck. The debt Inland Fuel owes is not just a monetary fine paid to the government. It’s a debt of trust, of dignity, and of security owed to every single person they endangered. That is a debt that can never be fully repaid.

Legal Receipts

The facts of this case are laid bare in the Consent Agreement between Inland Fuel and the Environmental Protection Agency. These are not our interpretations; these are direct statements from the legal record.

Inland Fuel has indicated that the fixed propane tank onsite has held propane in excess of 10,000 pounds at the Bridgeport Facility since at least October 2015 but that it was a “retail facility” excluded from coverage under the RMP requirements until 2017. Respondents did not file an RMP for the Bridgeport Facility until June 16, 2020.

Consent Agreement, Docket No. CAA-01-2026-0027, Page 6, Paragraph 32

Accordingly, by failing to timely submit an RMP for the Propane Process, Respondents violated 40 C.F.R. §§ 68.10(a) and 68.12 and Section 112(r)(7)(E) of the CAA, 42 U.S.C. § 7412(r)(7)(E).

Consent Agreement, Docket No. CAA-01-2026-0027, Page 6, Paragraph 34

Pursuant to 40 C.F.R. § 68.65(a), the owner or operator of a Program 3 process is required, among other things, to compile written process safety information before completing the Process Hazard Analysis.

Consent Agreement, Docket No. CAA-01-2026-0027, Page 6, Paragraph 36

…the owner or operator must also document that the equipment complies with recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices and document that any equipment designed according to outdated standards is designed, maintained, inspected, tested, and operated in a safe manner.

Consent Agreement, Docket No. CAA-01-2026-0027, Page 6, Paragraph 36

Societal Impact Mapping

Environmental Degradation

The document doesn’t detail a spill, because we got lucky. The environmental threat here is one of catastrophic potential. Propane is a fossil fuel. A failure of a tank holding over 10,000 pounds would not be a minor leak; it would be a massive, volatile release. While it vaporizes quickly, it can contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, a harmful air pollutant.

The more severe environmental danger comes from a potential explosion and fire. A blast of this magnitude could act as an ignition source for a much larger industrial fire, incinerating other materials on-site and releasing a toxic plume of smoke and unburnt chemicals into the atmosphere. The fallout would contaminate the air, soil, and nearby water sources. The entire purpose of the RMP is to have a vetted plan to prevent and contain such a disaster. Without one, Inland Fuel was operating without a safety net, leaving the local environment completely exposed to the consequences of their potential failure.

Public Health

The primary public health threat was the risk of a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE). This is the most devastating type of accident involving pressurized flammable liquids. It can create a massive fireball and a powerful blast wave, causing fatal burns and traumatic injuries across a significant radius. For three years, the community around the Bridgeport Facility lived under the shadow of this unmanaged threat, a threat they were never informed of.

The failure to document compliance with “good engineering practices” is a direct public health issue. These are not suggestions; they are the industry standards that prevent pipes from bursting, valves from failing, and tanks from corroding. By not compiling this basic safety information, Inland Fuel demonstrated that it could not prove its facility was safe. This creates an intolerable level of risk, turning everyday life for nearby residents into an involuntary gamble. This constant, low-level threat, even if unrealized, erodes a community’s sense of security and well-being.

Economic Inequality

Industrial facilities that store hazardous materials are disproportionately located near working-class and marginalized communities. These residents are forced to bear the health and safety risks of corporate operations while the profits are extracted and sent to shareholders elsewhere. They often lack the political capital and financial resources to fight back against dangerous zoning or to demand accountability from negligent corporations.

This is a story of privatized profits and socialized risk. Inland Fuel saved money by deferring the costs of compliance: the engineering studies, the safety audits, the staff hours needed to prepare and file an RMP. They pocketed those savings as profit. In doing so, they transferred the true cost—the risk of a deadly accident—onto the backs of the community. Had a disaster occurred, the financial burden of emergency response, medical care, property destruction, and long-term cleanup would have fallen on taxpayers and local residents, not just the corporation responsible. This is the fundamental economic violence of the system.

What Now?

A consent agreement means the company pays a fine and moves on. The system protects itself. True accountability requires sustained public pressure and vigilance.

• Corporate Roles on Watchlist Chief Operating Officer, Inland Fuel
  Head of Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS), Inland Fuel
  Bridgeport Facility Site Manager
  Board of Directors, Inland Fuel
• Regulatory Watchlist U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 1
  Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

Fines are just the cost of doing business. Real change comes from below. Demand a public, searchable database of all facilities in your area required to have a Risk Management Plan. Support local environmental justice organizations fighting to keep polluters out of their neighborhoods. Organize with your neighbors. The power they have is financial. The power we have is each other.