An hour's chore in 2008 sparked what is likely to be a multiyear lawsuit after a backhoe operator punctured a gasoline pipeline near the junction of Weaver and Auction roads, Rapho Township.

The pipeline is owned by Buckeye Pipe Line Transportation LLC, of Breinigsville, Lehigh County. The section of conduit in question crosses Kreider Farms land via an easement.

Buckeye is suing Kreider Farms and Mountainside Excavators Inc., both Manheim companies, to recover more than half a million dollars it says it's owed for cleanup and remediation.

About 2,323 gallons of gasoline leaked out of the ruptured pipe, according to a civil suit filed in Lancaster County Court June 26, 2009.

That's considered a large spill, according to Teresa Candori, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. She said in an e-mail that DEP tracked 132 gasoline spills over the past three years, including seven of at least 1,000 gallons.

In 2005, according to news accounts, nearly 43,000 gallons of gas leaked from a Buckeye Pipe Line tank farm near Macungie.

A 63,000-gallon spill was reported after a bulldozer ruptured a Sunoco gasoline transmission pipeline three years ago in Northumberland County.

Attorneys for Buckeye Pipe Line contend that mopping up the fuel in Rapho has been costly and time consuming.

The site remains fenced off, according to Ronald E. Kreider, president of Kreider Farms and a defendant in the lawsuit along with his father, Noah W. Kreider. "They have some kind of sophisticated pumping system" to vent vapors from the soil.

The incident happened June 12, 2008, according to court documents.

Ronald Kreider said the backhoe operator initially contained the spilled gas by building a dike around it.

"There was no indication" of water contamination, added Kreider, who said the accident happened during a light grading job around a farm building's dock.

Pipeline company workers responded quickly and have followed state Department of Environmental Protection guidelines to mitigate the spill, said James R. Adams, a Barley Snyder LLC attorney representing the Kreiders.

"Everybody's been pretty cooperative in trying to take care of it," Adams said.

Court papers mention an amicable relationship among the parties. Still, there's that matter of money. Typically, Adams added, the point of civil litigation is to determine who is responsible for picking up the tab. "We're just sorting through that right now."

According to the suit, Buckeye's control center learned of the breach through an independent monitoring system and immediately started emergency shut-down procedures.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants of breaching their pipeline easement contract with Buckeye by disrupting use of the conduit. The plaintiff also accuses the defendants of negligently damaging Buckeye property and of "negligence per se" for failing to promptly alert Buckeye and local authorities to the spill.

Buckeye shouldered the cleanup burden, according to the suit; it is owed $506,082.29 and "continues to incur costs."

Company officials could not be reached for comment. Maria Gonzalez Calvet and John Goodchild, Philadelphia attorneys representing Buckeye, did not return calls to their offices.

Defendant Arthur L. Groff, president of Mountainside Excavators Inc., also did not return a call.

Jeffrey Rettig, a Harrisburg attorney representing Mountainside, refused comment on the case, as did Scott Grenoble, a Lebanon attorney representing Nationwide Agribusiness.

Erie Insurance Group and Nationwide Agribusiness provide coverage respectively for Mountainside and Kreider Farms, according to the suit.

Both insurance companies were dismissed as parties in the lawsuit last fall.

Meanwhile, Ronald Kreider said, work on the dock area has long been completed. "It was a small job."

Resolution of the pipeline case is expected to take a lot more time. "I'm looking for it to be resolved in the next couple of years," Kreider said.