WV Chemical Storage Tank Company Files For Bankruptcy: Owes Millions To IRS And Creditors picture and video

by Monica Davis

Good luck to the cities, towns and people thinking about suing the Freedom Industries, the owners of the tank spilled thousands of gallons of coal washing chemical into the Ohio River.

They’re trying to outrun the IRS and filed bankruptcy. They reportedly haven’t paid federal taxes since 2010.

Freedom Industries, the company that fouled thousands of West Virginians’ water with a chemical leak into the Elk River last week, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.

Freedom owes $3.6 million to its top 20 unsecured creditors, according to bankruptcy documents. The company also owes more than $2.4 million in unpaid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, and the IRS has placed at least three liens on Freedom’s property, demanding payment.

The unpaid taxes date back to at least 2000, according to a lien filed in 2010.  MOREHERE

According to the Washington Post: 

It took just one week for Pennsylvania coal mining executive Cliff Forrest, the new owner of Freedom Industries, to discover that one of the six-decade-old storage tanks he had acquired at the end of December was leaking a toxic chemical into the Elk River that supplies water to more than 300,000 West Virginians.

And it took just one more week for Freedom Industries, facing class-action lawsuits and a Justice Department investigation, to declare bankruptcy. On Friday, the besieged company filed for protection under Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charleston. MOREHERE