The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Energy Transfer, the company building the Rover natural gas distribution pipeline, to pay $431,000 for water and air pollution violations at various locations across the state.
In its order issued Friday, OEPA also instructed Energy Transfer to submit plans to address potential future releases and restore impacted wetlands along the $4.2 billion underground pipeline route, which stretches from Washington County in southeastern Ohio to Defiance County in the northwest.
Work on the pipeline began in mid-February, and state officials say a total of 18 incidents involving mud spills from drilling, stormwater pollution and open burning at Rover pipeline construction sites have been reported between late March and Monday to the agency.
That includes a 200-gallon release of mud Monday in Harrison County. Other Rover pipeline incidents include a spill that impacted one village’s public water system and another that smothered a protected wetland with several million gallons of bentonite mud, a natural clay which is used as a drilling lubricant.
“All told, our frustration is really high. We don’t think they’re taking Ohio seriously,” said OEPA Director Craig Butler. “Normally when we have … a series of events like this, companies respond with a whole lot of contrition and whole lot of commitment. We haven’t seen that. It’s pretty shocking.”
Alexis Daniel, an Energy Transfer spokeswoman, said Monday in an email statement that the “small number of inadvertent releases of ‘drilling mud’ during horizontal drilling in Ohio … is not an unusual occurrence when executing directional drilling operations and is all permitted activity by (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission).
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