WILKES-BARRE -- The Department of Environmental Protection announced today that it will hold a public briefing on Tuesday April 17 to discuss the circumstances surrounding the Lathrop compressor station explosion that occurred March 29 in Springville Township, Susquehanna County.

The 6-8 pm briefing is at Montrose High School, 75 Meteor Way, in Montrose. Representatives from DEP and Williams Partners, LLC, the owners of Lathrop, will be on hand.

“This is an opportunity for DEP and Williams to answer questions people in our community have,” DEP Northeast Regional Director Mike Bedrin said. “There has been significant amount of interest about what happened and we look forward to providing more information to the public.”

The event takes the place of the public meeting and hearing that was originally scheduled the same day to discuss air quality plan approval applications from Laser Northeast Gathering, a subsidiary of Williams Partners. Laser is proposing to construct four separate natural gas compressor stations in Susquehanna County. That meeting and hearing has been re-scheduled for 6 p.m., Thursday April 26 at Elk Lake High School, 2380 Elk Lake School Road in Springville.