State lawmaker under fire over Ala. company cleanup

The Clarion-Ledger, 11/29/7

Seven years after Sen. Jack Gordon agreed to solve environmental problems at a oil plant he owned in Alabama, state officials there are asking the federal government for help enforcing clean-up efforts.

Bessemer Petroleum Co. Inc. has not complied with a consent order that Gordon, one of Mississippi’s most powerful lawmakers, signed, according to a letter recently sent to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Gordon has moved some environmental hazards since a circuit court sought to enforce the order last year, Alabama officials said. But underground storage tanks and other potential problems remain at the property outside Birmingham, they added.