SALT LAKE CITY - The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah??s environmental cleanup office is suing Houston-based ConocoPhillips Co. for fraud over money used to clean up underground storage tank leaks at 35 service stations.

The newspaper says that although ConocoPhillips "should have gotten the cleanup money from its private insurers," the company tapped into the state??s Underground Storage Tank Fund "and then failed to reimburse the $8.4 million it received from the fund, the state alleges in its suit." A company spokesperson declined to discuss the case.

The state??s Division of Environment Response and Remediation wants $25 million in punitive damages and reimbursement. Brent Everett, director of the agency, which oversees the UST program, said the fund is the primary source of cleanup money for many small gas station owners and operators (75% participate in the fund).

The newspaper writes that gas station owners are required to pay the first $10,000 for cleanups. Then the UST Fund pays for costs up to $2 million. Some gas stations, however, have used the tank program as "a backup or supplemental source of funding when their own insurance companies fail to cover the full cost of a cleanup."

The ConocoPhillips case is the state??s first effort to address what the state sees as double dipping, said Everett, noting that other states have taken similar action. "It was something we heard could be happening, and we decided to look into it," he told the newspaper.