| While Earth Day was recognized across America, WV Attorney General Patrick Morrisey went to bat in federal court for WV's coal industry to ramp back deadlines to decrease emissions from coal generating power plants.
West Virginia's rivers and streams have long been under guidelines to eat a limited number of fish because of mercury content linked to emissions from the state's coal fired power plants.
See TWISTED LOGIC OVER POISONED FISH - WV Allows More Fish Eating With Mercury Risk
And West Virginia Fish Consumption Advisories
Gas driller TransEnergy fined $600,000 for criminal pollution violations
By Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette Staff Writer
A St. Marys-based natural gas company was sentenced Wednesday to pay $600,000 in fines after it admitted to three criminal violations of the federal Clean Water Act for dumping wastes from its operations into Marshall County waterways.
U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey approved the fines to be paid by Trans Energy Inc. as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
Trans Energy had agreed to pay $200,000 each for three misdemeanor counts originally outlined in a charging document made public in September 2014.
The case is the second criminal plea agreement secured by U.S. Attorney William J, Ihlenfeld II for pollution crimes related to the boom in natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale region in Northern West Virginia. A subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy previously pleaded guilty to similar violations and paid a $600,000 fine.
In the Trans Energy case, court records show the company pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of "negligent discharge of pollutants without a permit," for dumping rock, sand, soil and stone from gas drilling and production operations into three Marshall County waterways, Wolf Run, the North Fork of Grave Creek, and the Left Fork of Maggoty Run.
Last year, Trans Energy also agreed to pay a $3 million civil penalty for a longer list of similar violations at 15 Marshall, Marion and Wetzel County sites regulators said were polluted by the company's unauthorized dumping. Company officials did not respond to requests for comment. Trans Energy reported the civil agreement and the criminal charges last month in a disclosure to shareholders.
The allegations against Trans Energy involve the company's dumping of materials into streams to build impoundments used at its natural gas operations between 2009 and 2011. Under federal law, companies must obtain Clean Water Act permits before they deposit such materials into waterways. Trans Energy admitted that it failed to properly train and supervise its employees and that it relied upon the unsubstantiated representations of a nearby property owner when determining whether environmental laws were being followed.
In a press release, David G. McLeod, Jr., special agent in charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional criminal enforcement program said, Wednesday, "Today's sentence demonstrates that EPA and its law enforcement partners will remain vigilant in protecting our nation's wetlands and water supplies."
Gas driller TransEnergy fined $600,000 for criminal pollution violations
By Ken Ward Jr. for the Charleston Gazette | 
