{"id":6267,"date":"2013-10-22T11:45:48","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T15:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6267"},"modified":"2014-01-29T05:23:58","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T10:23:58","slug":"spectra-energy-fined-15-million-for-pcb-spills-at-89-pipeline-sites-epa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/spectra-energy-fined-15-million-for-pcb-spills-at-89-pipeline-sites-epa.html","title":{"rendered":"Spectra Energy fined $15 million for PCB spills at 89 pipeline sites –EPA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThose\r\n\r\nPHMSA fines<\/a> weren’t the half of Spectra Energy’s leaks and environmental \r\nviolations.\r\nDo we want a record-EPA-fined pipeline company running PCBs through our counties?\r\nDon’t we have enough \r\nPCBs in the ADS landfill in Lowndes County<\/a>\r\nthat’s\r\n\r\nin a recharge zone for the aquifer we all drink out of<\/a>?\r\nHaven’t we already\r\n\r\nimported enough hazardous wastes from the Seven Out Superfund site in Waycross<\/a>?\r\nMaybe the Lowndes County Commission should hear about these things tonight.\r\n

\r\nL.A. Times, 21 October 1989,\r\n\r\nPipeline Firm to Pay Record EPA Fine<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe Environmental Protection Agency said the Texas Eastern\r\nTransmission Corp. has agreed to pay the largest federal fine ever\r\nfor an environmental violation—a $15-million penalty for\r\nimproper toxic waste operations. The record fine is part of a\r\nsettlement of civil charges brought against the company for\r\ndischarging highly toxic PCBs—polychlorinated\r\nbiphenyls—at 89 sites along a natural gas pipeline running\r\nfrom Texas to New Jersey. Overall, the company is expected to spend\r\n$400 million for cleanup activities.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\nThe Southeast Supply Header on that map is where the gas for Spectra’s proposed\r\nSabal Trail Pipeline is supposed to start to run on a rented line\r\nnortheast to\r\n\r\nAnniston, Alabama<\/a>\r\nwhere the Sabal Trail Pipeline is proposed to start\r\nrunning through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida for the benefit of Florida\r\nPower and Light.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\nEPA says cleanup took three<\/strike> years.\r\nLuke C. Hester wrote EPA PR 29 March 2001,\r\n\r\nPIPELINE OPERATOR COMPLETES REQUIRED PCB CLEANUP WORK<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nTexas Eastern Transmission, LP has completed all requirements of a\r\n1989 federal consent decree regarding polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)\r\ncontamination at numerous sites along the firm’s 9,000 mile natural\r\ngas distribution pipeline in 14 states. Texas Eastern has abided by\r\nthe provisions of the consent decree, cleaning up PCBs at its\r\nstations under the agreement with EPA. The Agency is urging other\r\ncompanies to follow the Texas Eastern lead in taking responsibility\r\nfor their actions and working cooperatively with the federal\r\ngovernment to clean up past environmental harm. The decade-plus\r\neffort cost an estimated $500 million to assess 462 sites for\r\ncontamination, install 707 groundwater monitoring wells, and remove\r\nand dispose approximately 600,000 tons of contaminated soil. Also\r\nunder the consent decree, Texas Eastern agreed to pay a $15 million\r\ncivil penalty and oversight costs between $14-$18 million and\r\ncontribute $1.1 million to the Superfund Trust Fund. Classified as a\r\npossible human carcinogen, PCB production was banned in the United\r\nStates in 1977. Texas Eastern used PCBs in its compressors as a fire\r\nretardant. Over time, the PCBs and other hazardous materials leaked\r\ninto the pipeline system and contaminated the existing pipeline\r\ncondensate\/liquid. The 1989 consent decree required soil cleanup at\r\n57 compressor stations and 139 facility locations along the\r\npipeline, and groundwater sampling at 76 sites. Soil cleanup was\r\ncompleted in 1998 and groundwater sampling in 2001.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nLet’s hope EPA was more thorough in cleaning up that Spectra\r\nrecord violation than they were in cleaning up the Seven Out Superfund\r\nsite in Waycross, and let’s hope EPA didn’t\r\n\r\nship some of the waste to Lowndes County\r\nlike they did from Seven Out<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nHow about we don’t risk it this time?\r\n

\r\nMaybe you’d like to mention that to\r\n\r\nyour Lowndes County Commissioners<\/a>\r\ntonight\r\n\r\nat 5:30 PM<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those PHMSA fines weren’t the half of Spectra Energy’s leaks and environmental violations. Do we want a record-EPA-fined pipeline company running PCBs through our counties? Don’t we have enough PCBs in the ADS landfill in Lowndes County that’s in a recharge zone for the aquifer we all drink out of? Haven’t we already imported enough […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,19,88,6124,6687,73,478,3,55],"tags":[619,8759,6771,7120,8706,8722,6712,209,8701,8709,8702,154,12,7,8734,562,6711,6076,7118,4836,6597,8731,6917,8772,6966,7119,8700,6,3545,8727,2597],"class_list":["post-6267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-history","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-natural-gas-2","category-pipeline-2","category-safety","category-solid-waste","category-transparency","category-water","tag-ads","tag-alabama","tag-anniston","tag-civil-charges","tag-environment","tag-epa","tag-fine","tag-floridan-aquifer","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-landfill","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-natural-gas","tag-pcb","tag-pipeline","tag-polychlorinated-biphenyls","tag-record","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-safety","tag-seven-out","tag-solid-waste","tag-spectra-energy","tag-texas-eastern-transmission","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-violation","tag-water","tag-waycross"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1D5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6267"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7511,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions\/7511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}