Grayson Co. filing liens against ‘all Amerigas property’ in county. Company refuses to compensate fire departments for response to major leak

County Attorney for Grayson County Jeremy Logsdon, after emerging from an Executive Session at Thursday’s Fiscal Court meeting, announced the county is filing liens against “all Amerigas property” in the county.

The action comes after Amerigas, a commercial propane supplier, failed to respond to Fiscal Court’s request for nearly $15,000 in compensation for the Leitchfield and Clarkson Fire Department’s response to a major gas leak in March 2023.

As K105 previously reported, the request was made in October 2024.

“They have yet to pay the claim, so we must take the necessary steps to file liens against all their property in Grayson County until the claim is satisfied,” Logsdon said.

The leak, which occurred at approximately 6:50 p.m. on Monday, March 20, 2023, was in a 30,000-gallon tank containing nearly 13,000 gallons of liquid propane at AmeriGas in the 600 block of West Main Street (Hwy 62) in Clarkson.

The leak was a result of a spring in the spring-loaded relief valve becoming stuck, leaving the valve in the open position and spewing highly flammable liquid propane from the tank.

It took crews about three hours to offload the liquid propane and transfer the liquid to other tanks on the property.

The offloading crew, though, could not siphon all 13,000 gallons from the tank, leaving a small amount of liquid inside, resulting in thousands of cubic yards of highly flammable propane vapor hissing as it escaped through the open relief valve.

Considering the dangers involved, and the difficulty in reaching the malfunctioning relief valve, officials made the decision out of an abundance of caution to wait until daylight on Tuesday morning, March 21, for a vendor to cap the leak.

(Photo: The scene in March 2023 at AmeriGas on West Main Street in Clarkson soon after first responders arrived on scene)

By Ken Howlett, News Director

Contact Ken at ken@k105.com