The Non-Financial Ledger

Jackson, Mississippi already knows what it feels like when the water fails. In 2022, the city’s water treatment plant collapsed under flooding and neglect, leaving hundreds of thousands of people — most of them Black, most of them working class — without safe running water for weeks. People lined up in their cars for bottled water. Hospitals scrambled. Families boiled what came out of the tap and hoped. The national media showed up, expressed concern, and left.

That crisis didn’t come from nowhere. It came from decades of disinvestment in infrastructure, from a tax base hollowed out by white flight and deindustrialization, from a state government that had spent years ignoring the capital city’s crumbling pipes. The people of Jackson didn’t just lose water pressure. They lost the basic human certainty that their government had their backs.

Now read this document again with that context in your hands.

At 455 Industrial Drive, a company called Jaxon Energy was sitting on 1.8 million gallons of oil. Not a small operation. Not a corner gas station. A bulk storage facility, the kind of industrial-scale site that federal law specifically targets with the most rigorous spill prevention requirements in the Clean Water Act. Those requirements exist because the people who wrote that law understood exactly what happens when bulk oil storage fails near a city’s water supply. They understood it because it had already happened, repeatedly, in communities that didn’t have the political power to make it stop.

What Jaxon Energy had at that facility on February 7, 2023, was essentially a fiction of compliance. They had a plan — a piece of paper — that did not describe what type of oil they stored. A plan with no emergency contact list. No drainage controls described. No countermeasures for spill response. Secondary containment that inspectors labeled inadequate. Tanks not subject to integrity testing. Piping above ground that wasn’t being inspected. No evidence that anyone on site had received training to respond to a discharge. No designated person accountable for spill prevention.

Think about that last one. At a facility with nearly two million gallons of oil, there was no single person whose job it was to make sure none of it escaped. Nobody whose name was on the door if something went wrong. The plan, such as it was, didn’t even name one.

The people of Jackson were not consulted on whether this was acceptable. They didn’t get a vote on whether a 1.8-million-gallon oil facility could operate in their city without functional containment systems. They found out — if they found out at all — because a federal inspector filed a report that was then quietly settled for less money than most Americans spend on a transmission repair.

$3,631. That is what the EPA determined a corporation’s permission slip to run a dangerous, non-compliant oil storage facility in Jackson, Mississippi was worth. That number is not an accident. It is a policy choice. It tells every other company in Region 4 exactly how seriously they need to take these rules. It tells the people of Jackson exactly where they rank in the federal government’s calculation of whose safety matters.

The agreement was signed, the check was mailed, and Jaxon Energy went back to work.

Legal Receipts: The Document Speaks

Every quote below is pulled directly from the EPA’s inspection findings and the Expedited Settlement Agreement filed as Docket No. CWA-04-2024-1102(b). Not one word has been invented or paraphrased.

“The parties enter into this ESA to settle the civil violations described in the Form for a penalty of $3,631.”

Expedited Settlement Agreement, Docket No. CWA-04-2024-1102(b), EPA Region 4

• This is the total civil penalty for every violation documented across five pages of inspection findings at a 1.8-million-gallon oil storage facility. The base penalty subtotal was $2,075; the 1.75 multiplier brought it to $3,631.
• Under the terms of this agreement, EPA is barred from pursuing any additional civil penalties for any violation documented during the February 7, 2023 inspection. Jaxon Energy paid once and walked away clean on all counts.

“Secondary containment is inadequate 112.8(c)(2) ($850)”

SPCC Inspection Findings, Alleged Violations, and Proposed Penalty Form, Page 4 of 5

• Secondary containment is the physical barrier — berms, lined basins, dike systems — designed to catch oil if a tank or pipe fails. Without it, a single tank rupture can send oil directly into storm drains, ground soil, and waterways.
• At 1.8 million gallons of total storage capacity, inadequate secondary containment is the failure mode that turns an industrial incident into a regional environmental catastrophe. The EPA valued this at $850.

“No contact list & phone numbers for response & reporting discharges 112.7(a)(3)(vi) ($75)”

SPCC Inspection Findings, Alleged Violations, and Proposed Penalty Form, Page 2 of 5

• If a spill occurred at this facility, there was no documented list of who to call. Not the fire department, not the National Response Center, not state emergency management. Nobody. The penalty for that omission: $75.
• This is a phone book. The federal fine for not having a phone book at a nearly two-million-gallon oil facility is seventy-five dollars.

“Inadequate or no listing of type of oil and storage capacity of containers 112.7(a)(3)(i) ($75)”

SPCC Inspection Findings, Alleged Violations, and Proposed Penalty Form, Page 2 of 5

• The plan did not document what type of oil was being stored. First responders arriving at an incident at this facility would not know from the plan whether they were dealing with crude oil, refined petroleum, diesel, or another product — information that determines the entire response protocol.
• Penalty: $75.

“No designated person accountable for spill prevention 112.7(f)(2) ($100)”

SPCC Inspection Findings, Alleged Violations, and Proposed Penalty Form, Page 3 of 5

• Federal regulations require facilities to designate a named individual responsible for spill prevention. Jaxon Energy had no such person on record. This means that in any internal accountability discussion after an incident, no single employee bore formal ownership of prevention.
• Penalty: $100. The cost of accountability at a 1.8-million-gallon oil facility is one hundred dollars.

“Respondent does not contest the inspection findings and neither admits nor denies the allegations in the Form. Respondent also waives any objections it may have to EPA’s jurisdiction, any rights to contest the allegations, and its right to appeal this ESA and Final Order.”

Expedited Settlement Agreement, Terms and Conditions Section

• This is the standard “neither admits nor denies” language that corporations use to settle regulatory cases without creating legal admissions. Jaxon Energy paid the fine, checked the compliance box, and generated no public record of culpability.
• The violations are documented on the inspection form. The company’s refusal to formally admit them means those findings cannot be used as established facts in any subsequent civil litigation by affected parties.

Societal Impact Mapping

This enforcement action did not happen in a neutral context. Every line of this document lands in a specific place, on specific people, with a specific history.

Public Health

The SPCC program exists specifically to prevent oil from reaching navigable waters and drinking water sources. The violations at this facility were failures at the most fundamental level of that mandate.

• Secondary containment was flagged as inadequate. Without functional secondary containment at a 1.8-million-gallon facility, a single structural failure in a tank or transfer line creates an uncontrolled oil release with no last-resort physical barrier between the spill and the surrounding environment.
• Inspectors found no evidence of periodic integrity testing on aboveground tanks. Tanks that are not tested for structural soundness can fail without warning; the facility had no documented system for catching deterioration before it became a rupture.
• There was no designated person accountable for spill prevention, no spill response contact list, and no documented discharge procedure protocol. In the event of a release, the facility would have been responding in a vacuum with no practiced chain of command.
• No training on discharge procedure protocols was documented for facility personnel. Workers handling 1.8 million gallons of oil had no verified knowledge of how to respond to a release, potentially delaying any emergency response and worsening the exposure window.
• Jackson, Mississippi has experienced repeated water system failures, leaving residents with compromised access to safe water. An uncontrolled oil discharge from this facility — located within the city at 455 Industrial Drive — would compound existing public health vulnerabilities in a community with limited capacity to absorb another water emergency.

Economic Inequality

The penalty structure embedded in this settlement is a map of who bears the real cost of environmental non-compliance.

• A $3,631 fine on a bulk oil storage facility is, by any honest analysis, a cost of doing business rather than a deterrent. The facility generates revenue from the storage and transfer of industrial oil at scale; this fine represents a fraction of a fraction of the operational economics of a single working day.
• Jackson, Mississippi is a majority-Black city with a median household income significantly below the national average and one of the highest poverty rates of any state capital in the country. The people living closest to this facility have the least political and economic power to demand that it be held to the standards the law requires.
• The “neither admits nor denies” settlement structure means that residents or downstream businesses harmed by a future spill tied to these failures would face significant legal obstacles to using the EPA’s findings as evidence. The settlement insulates the company from liability while providing no compensation or remediation fund for the surrounding community.
• The EPA’s Expedited Settlement Agreement program, which produced this outcome, is designed for efficiency — to move cases quickly and cheaply. That efficiency is not neutral. It systematically produces smaller penalties and faster closures, which benefits corporate respondents and burdens the communities that were supposed to be protected by the underlying regulations.
• There is no record in this document of any community notification, public comment period, or resident engagement in the settlement process. The people of Jackson had no formal seat at the table when the EPA decided that $3,631 was sufficient accountability for the conditions at this facility.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

Federal enforcement is supposed to hurt enough to change behavior. These numbers tell you exactly how much the federal government decided the safety of Jackson, Mississippi is worth.

What Now?

This settlement is final. The civil penalty door is closed. But accountability has other doors, and the people of Jackson have every right to kick them open.

Who Signed This

• Bryan Olier, General Manager, Jaxon Energy — signed the settlement agreement on May 1, 2024, on behalf of the company at 455 Industrial Drive, Jackson, Mississippi 39209.
• Craig Ellison, Jaxon Energy — listed as the company’s enforcement contact throughout the proceeding.
• Mary Jo Bragan, Chief, Water Enforcement Branch, EPA Region 4 — signed on behalf of the EPA on May 17, 2024.
• Tanya Floyd, Regional Judicial Officer, EPA Region 4 — issued the Final Order on May 20, 2024, making the settlement legally binding.

Regulatory Watchlist

• EPA Region 4 (Atlanta): The office that handled this enforcement action. Contact them regarding future SPCC compliance at this facility. They retain the right to inspect for new violations at any time.
• EPA Office of Inspector General: Investigates whether EPA enforcement decisions reflect appropriate deterrence. A $3,631 penalty for this scale of non-compliance is a legitimate subject of OIG inquiry.
• Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ): The state environmental regulator has independent authority to inspect and enforce against facilities within Mississippi’s jurisdiction and is not bound by the federal settlement’s liability immunity.
• EPA National Response Center (1-800-424-8802): Required reporting destination for any actual oil discharge from this or any regulated facility. If you witness or have evidence of a release, this is the mandatory call.
• EPA ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online): Public database tracking the enforcement history of every regulated facility. Look up Jaxon Energy at 455 Industrial Drive, Jackson, MS to monitor future inspections and violations.

Resistance and Mutual Aid

• Contact Jackson’s city council directly and demand that the city formally request a re-inspection of this facility under MDEQ authority, independent of the federal settlement. Local government has standing to make that request and to publicize the results.
• Connect with environmental justice organizations active in Jackson, including those that mobilized during the 2022 water crisis. They already have community infrastructure, legal contacts, and relationships with federal oversight offices. Coalition matters more than individual complaints.
• Submit a FOIA request to EPA Region 4 for the complete inspection file for Docket No. CWA-04-2024-1102(b), including any photographs, inspector notes, and internal communications about the penalty calculation. You are legally entitled to this information.
• Share this document. The settlement agreement is a public record. It should be in front of every Jackson resident, every environmental reporter covering the South, and every elected official representing this district. Public pressure is the only enforcement mechanism that does not have a $3,631 price tag.