Civil penalty issued for problems during construction of Falcon pipeline

The Shell Pipeline Co. and its prime contractor that built the Falcon Pipeline have agreed to pay a nearly $700,000 civil penalty with state environmental regulators for pollution caused during construction of the project in 2019, including in northern Washington County.
The state Department of Environmental Protection announced the $697,270 settlement Wednesday with Shell Pipeline and Minnesota Limited for drilling fluid leaking into waterways and erosion problems along the 45-mile pipeline that travels from Houston through western Allegheny County and into Beaver County.
The problems occurred from April until September 2019 with five occasions of the drilling discharge making its way into Raccoon Creek, Mill Creek, an unidentified wetland and two unnamed tributaries that flow into Potato Garden Run, according to the settlement. There were also at least eight recorded issues involving sediment pollution discharging into waterways from April until December 2019, the DEP said.
The companies also failed to comply with permit conditions, implement best practices for erosion and sediment control or stabilize site when issues occurred. The agency also said the companies did not notify the DEP for “inadvertent returns” of drilling fluid discharging into the streams, as required.
“Pipeline construction is complete and construction sites have been temporarily stabilized,” DEP said in a written statement.
Separate conservation districts in Washington, Allegheny and Beaver counties conducted 67 site inspections on DEP’s behalf during pipeline construction in the tri-county area to determine whether all rules and regulations were followed.
“DEP and the conservation districts observed violations resulting in sediment pollution from pipeline construction sites entering waters of the commonwealth as well as violations that had the potential to cause sediment pollution into waters of the commonwealth,” DEP said in its statement. “However, no visual aquatic impacts were observed.”
Of the $697,270 penalty assessed to the companies, Washington County Conservation District will receive $2,611, which is slightly more than similar agencies in Allegheny and Beaver counties received from the settlement. Most of the money, $479,464 will go into the state’s Clean Water Fund while $211,875 will go into the Encroachments Fund.
The Falcon pipeline travels from the MarkWest plant in Houston to the Shell’s soon-to-open petrochemical cracker plant near Monaca. Construction on the pipeline began in December 2018, and it is expected to be put in operation once the cracker plant starts production in the coming months.
Attempts to reach Shell and Minnesota Limited of Big Lake, Minn., were unsuccessful Thursday.