“The city of North Pole, Alaska, used to have clean groundwater. But now, it’s the polar opposite.

According to a lawsuit filed by the city last week, two oil companies are responsible for polluting North Pole’s groundwater and some private drinking water wells with a mysterious chemical. The chemical, called sulfolane, leaked from an oil refinery that the lawsuit alleges was negligently operated — both by current refinery owner Flint Hills Alaska Resources, which is owned by Koch Industries, and former owner Williams Alaska Petroleum.

“The presence of sulfolane contamination in the city’s groundwater has rendered that groundwater unfit for human consumption and endangers the public health or welfare,” the lawsuit reads, according to a report in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “Ultimately, these hazardous substances have migrated off the refinery property and have contaminated the groundwater down gradient of the refinery and within the city, including wells owned by the city and supplying drinking water to the city’s inhabitants.””* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

*Read more here:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/12/04/3599276/north-pole-koch-lawsuit/

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