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A Texas-based natural gas producer has agreed to pay fines and to maintain air-pollution monitors in the Uinta Basin for the next two years as part of a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Under the agreement addressing Clean Air Act violations at the Blue Bell Gas plant near Roosevelt, El Paso Midstream Group LLC, will pay civil penalties of $20,000 in addition to spending up to $235,000 to fund and maintain two air pollution monitors in the basin.
"This settlement will help to continue the much-needed air monitoring capacity on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation that will help inform the management of air quality in the region," said Mike Gaydosh, EPA's enforcement director in Denver, adding that El Paso cooperated with the agency to resolve the violations.
El Paso was accused of violating the federal clean-air law by failing to control hazardous air pollutant emissions from the Blue Bell plant prior to 2009 and by failing to implement a leak detection and repair program.
Since then, the plant was modified into a natural gas compressor station, now known as the Blue Bell Compressor Station, and further improvements are under way at the company's Altamont Main Plant, said Richard Wheatley.
Data from the pollution monitors will become part of the EPA's national pollution inventory. It also will help local officials and residents deal with air quality on the reservation.
"We believe in being [a good] neighbor," said Wheatley. "We do our level best to adhere to environmental laws wherever we are."
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