Millennium Pipeline agrees to fine, other penalty

DEC charges hundreds of violations

By FRITZ MAYER

ALBANY, NY — Millennium Pipeline has agreed to pay $200,000 in fines and to spend $1 million to pay for independent specialists to monitor the work of the company as it finishes work on the pipeline this spring and into next year.

The majority of the work on the pipeline, which runs through Delaware, Sullivan, Orange and five other counties was completed in 2008.

According to a complaint filed by the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) in November of 2008, and obtained by The River Reporter, Millennium committed hundreds of violations of federal and state regulations while constructing the line. Many of the violations were related to the protection of water quality and involved the Mongaup River, East Branch Delaware, Basket Creek and dozens of other creeks, lakes and wetlands. The alleged violations included such charges as a “failure to install and maintain temporary erosion and sediment controls…failure to minimize construction wetland disturbance … and failure to properly address temporary access roads.”

However, not all of the alleged violations were about water quality. One had to do with a mudslide on a road near Peas Eddy in Delaware County on June 16, 2008, which resulted in the DEC issuing a stop-work order. The complaint reads, “DEC staff have reviewed [Millennium’s] environmental inspection website for the month of June 2008 and found no environmental inspector reports posted on the website for the Peas Eddy area for the month of June 2008.” That, said the report, was a violation of regulations covering the pipeline construction.

Other violations included the disturbance of land outside of the area covered by permits, the discharge of fluids into the environment on three separate occasions, including oil and diesel fuel.

Millennium denied the charges but agreed to take several steps as it finishes work on the 182-mile pipeline in the next two years. Beyond paying the $200,000 fine to the DEC, the company will pay to fund five full-time positions from an independent organization to oversee the final work on the pipeline. The full-time positions will last for two years. Four of the positions will be for storm water pollution-control specialists, and the fifth will be for a stream-protection biologist.

The consent order was signed by Richard Leehr, the president of Millennium on February 2, and by DEC commissioner Pete Grannis the next day.

Millennium declined to comment on the consent order.