Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company and its contractor which installed a controversial natural gas line through Otis State Forest will pay a total of $800,000 in fines and to make repairs after damaging an ecologically-important vernal pool, failing to protect wetlands and damaging the roadway during the construction.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company and its contractor Henkels & McCoy, Inc. will make about $300,000 in penalties and payments to the Massachusetts Natural Resource Damages Trust and will spend about $500,000 to repave part of Cold Spring Road, in Sandisfield, according to the agreement between the company and its contractor Henkels & McCoy Inc. and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.
The damage was done in 2017 while the company was installing a four-mile line through Otis State Forest as part of a 14-mile pipe extension that cut through New York and Connecticut. The work drew multiple protests and led to more than a dozen arrests for civil disobedience.
Under the claim, Tennessee Gas was accused of failing to maintain erosion and sediment controls causing soil and sediment to run into more than 630 square feet of wetlands. It was also accused of excavating and filling portions of a vernal pool and shutting down a required pump temporarily degrading water quality in Spectacle Pond Brook, the Attorney General’s office said in announcing the settlement.
In a second location, the companies were also accused of dumping 15,000 gallons of contaminated pipeline test water directly onto the ground adjacent to Tennessee Gas' pipeline compressor station in Agawam, the announcement said.
“Tennessee Gas repeatedly assured the state and Sandisfield residents that water quality and wetlands would be protected during pipeline construction, but they failed to make that happen,” Healey said in writing. “My office will continue to hold accountable those who violate our critical environmental protection laws. The paving of Cold Spring Road greatly benefits the town, whose residents suffered through the disruption caused by pipeline construction.”
“This settlement requires Tennessee Gas and Henkels to make a significant contribution to the Natural Resource Damages Trust, which will directly benefit wetland resources in the Commonwealth and is in addition to the requirement to restore the wetlands damaged during the pipeline construction,” said Commissioner Martin Suuberg of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
Under the settlement, Tennessee Gas has agreed to contract with Palmer Paving Company, in Springfield, to pave the four miles of road in Sandisfield at a cost to Tennessee Gas of more than $500,000. The company had previously repaired damage to Cold Spring Road from truck and equipment traffic during pipeline construction, but the road’s condition has since deteriorated, the announcement said.
The paving is expected to begin next week.
“The Town of Sandisfield is extremely grateful for the efforts of the Attorney General and Rep. Smitty Pignatelli for assisting the Selectboard in getting Cold Spring Road restored,” said Brian O’Rourke, chairman of the Sandisfield Selectboard. “This agreement will also make sure Tennessee Gas Pipeline honored the commitments they first made when the pipeline expansion project started.”