PIPELINE PENALTY
Shale gas companies to pay $300K in fines over construction spills, leaks.
CNX Gas Co. LLC and CNX Midstream Partners LP, have agreed to pay a $310,000 civil penalty for spills, leaks and poor erosion and sediment controls that occurred during and after construction of natural gas gathering pipelines and waste fluid pipelines in East Finley Township, Washington County, and Morris Township, Greene County.
The consent order and agreement, entered on June 21 but announced Friday by the State Department of Environmental Protection, also requires CNX to submit to an independent audit of its wastewater management activities within six months, and directs it to resubmit pollution, prevention, and contingency plans to prevent future environmental impacts from its shale gas development activities statewide within two months.
“For DEP, enforcing environmental laws goes beyond correcting violations and collecting civil penalties,” said DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell in a department news release. “The department successfully uses these agreements to gather data used to improve our industry oversight and drive operational changes beyond what the law requires to strengthen environmental safeguards more broadly.”
The 16-page consent order states that the violations of the state Clean Streams Act, Oil and Gas Act and Solid Waste Management Act occurred between Aug. 26, 2016, and Aug. 16, 2018, at the wastewater pipeline project and included spills of 43 gallons of drilling mud into Boothe Run, 630 gallons of salty brine wastewater along the pipeline, and an estimated 2,100 gallons of brine into a tributary of the Enlow Fork stream.
When CNX excavated the pipeline it discovered a four- to sixinch crack at a weld location,
which leaked brine into the pipeline trench, the DEP release said.
According to the order, the inadequate erosion and sediment management practices of the companies also caused landslides outside the permitted area of disturbance for the pipelines, collectively known as the Morris to McQuay Reroute Pipeline Project. The landslides contributed to the destabilization of a nearby shale gas well pad.
DEP’s compliance staff observed stressed and dead vegetation in the spill areas and elevated salts and dissolved solids in a groundwater seepage into the tributary, the DEP release stated. The department required the companies to identify and monitor all well water supplies within 3,000 feet of the leaked fluids, and also to install monitoring wells to identify groundwater impacts.
The consent order states that the companies provided “Preparedness, Prevention and Contingency Plans” that addressed the earth movement associated with pipeline construction, but did not identify the composition of waste fluids in the pipelines or measures to monitor or respond to pipeline leaks or spills.
CNX Gas, a 2006 spinoff of Consol Energy, did not respond to a request for comment.
CNX owns and operates the wastewater pipelines associated with the Morris to McQuay Phase 2 Reroute Pipeline Project, which transports waste fluids for reuse in shale gas well development in East Finley.
The DEP noted in its release that the companies had stabilized the slide areas and acted quickly to excavate and remove contaminated soil to remediate the spill areas.
CNX’s sampling of 10 residential water wells near the site, a requirement of a
September 2018 compliance order, found no material change in water quality, the DEP stated in its news release. The three groundwater monitoring wells also showed no impairment of water quality.