The state Department of Environmental Protection has fined a shale gas pipeline company $1.5 million for damaging streams and wetlands in Butler County.
According to the DEP’s report made public Monday, the pipeline project of Stonehenge Appalachia LLC- which is a subsidiary of Colorado-based Stonehenge Energy Resources II- was cited for nearly 200 violations of the state Clean Streams Law, Oil and Gas Act, Solid Waste Management Act and Dam Safety Act.
“This type of man-made ecological impact is both egregious and avoidable, and never should have occurred,” said Acting DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell in a statement. “By this action, Stonehenge accepts both environmental and financial responsibility for their actions.”
State officials allege Stonehenge and its contractors allowed the discharge of drilling fluids and sediments into multiple tributaries of Little Connoquenessing Creek and Stony Creek along an 18-mile pipeline in Butler County.
The violations took place between November 2015 and March 2016, according to the DEP.
A landslide was also discovered by DEP inspectors earlier this year in a pipeline construction area in Connoquenessing.
Stonehenge’s Butler County pipeline projects gather and compress natural gas from multiple wells in various townships and then deliver the gas to a local processing plant.
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