Tank Removal Co. Claims Bankruptcy
The company, Advanced Technologies International, is not broke but needs time to find new financing, its executives said. It has debts of $20 million but assets of $26 million, they said.
The filing for Chapter 11 reorganization was in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware by ATI's parent company, Technologies International Holding. The petition covered ATI and a trucking
ubsidiary, Meridian Transportation.
efuses to release millions of dollars it is owed for work performed, the officials said.
"We are not upside down financially as a normal bankruptcy would be," Hugh Slatery, finance director for the holding company, said in a telephone interview from Lexington.
"We're in bankruptcy because in '97 we did $12 million worth of work and in '98 we did $37 million worth of work and received reimbursement from the state, a combined total, of $4.7 million.
... We had to borrow the rest of the money," Slatery said.
Creditors with liens on the companies include Bank One in Lexington and a venture capital company, Llama Capital Services of Fayetteville, Ark., according to records in the secretary of
tate's office.
Five landfills owned by Waste Management Inc. sued for nonpayment earlier this month. The companies owe about $9 million to dozens of subcontractors and vendors, the official concede.
Public Protection Secretary Laura Douglas disputed Slatery's version of events and his estimate — $40 million — of what ATI might be owed.
Between the two, ATI and Meridian have at various times double-billed and sought payment for people not working or for expenses that aren't allowed, Douglas said.
ATI also had a habit of requesting payment before the Natural Resources Cabinet, which reviewed soil and water sampling, confirmed to the fund that there was contamination, Douglas said.
The company "has refused to accept any responsibility for its current financial situation," Douglas said in a news conference.
Money in the fund comes from a fee on fuels sold in Kentucky — 1.4 cents per gallon. The fund currently has about $100 million, of which $60 million has been obligated for cleanups, its executive director, Robert Nickel, said.
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