Print edition: 
A Texas-based pipeline company has agreed to pay a $450,000 civil penalty to the United States to settle allegations it failed to prepare and maintain proper response plans to deal with spills and environmental accidents at eight of its oil storage terminal facilities in Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.
NuStar Pipeline Operating Partnership of San Antonio also has agreed to spend an additional $768,000 on a supplemental environmental project to install and operate tank volume monitoring and alarm systems at several of its facilities, according to documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Omaha.
The affected NuStar facilities in Kansas are in Hutchinson and Salina, according to a news release from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Others are located in LeMars, Milford and Rock Rapids, Iowa, and Columbus, Geneva and Norfolk, Neb.
The eight facilities have a combined storage capacity of more than 71 million gallons of oil.
The EPA initially discovered in 2006 that several Nu-Star facilities didn't have response plans. The plans were prepared after the government opened an investigation, the EPA said.
