PORTLAND, Maine - Summit Natural Gas of Maine has agreed to pay a $25,000 fine as part of a consent agreement with the Maine Public Utilities Commission.
The company had faced a proposed penalty four times that amount, which a PUC spokesman says reflects the seriousness of the safety violations connected with the case.
The original fine, which the PUC says stemmed from safety violations during gas pipeline installations in Kennebec and Somerset counties, was $100,000. And that's in addition to a proposed $150,000 dollar fine against the company for violations during a pipeline installation in Gardiner.
"Most of the violations centered around individuals performing tasks who weren't qualified through evaluation to actually perform those tasks," says PUC spokesman Harry Lanphear, "and so that was the proposed violation that we worked through with Summit."
And those individuals were not actually Summit employees. A July 11 notice of probable violation issued by a PUC gas safety manager identified the gas line workers as employees of Tetra Tech Construction Inc., of Phoenix, and CCB Inc., of Westbrook, both of which are Summit subcontractors.
Stacy Fitts, a former state representative who now serves as Summit's governmental and regulatory affairs director, says the company has worked, and will continue to work, with the PUC to satisfy any and all concerns related to the gas line installation process in Maine.
"I want to be extremely clear that safety is first and foremost in all cases," Fitts said. "That's the underlying culture at Summit. Our parent company, Summit Utilities, operates more than 1,200 miles of gas pipeline and in the U.S. and has never had a major accident in 16 years."
The Portland Press Herald has reported that Summit had, at one point, responded to concerns raised by PUC safety staff about the workers' lack of qualifications, and instructed Tetra Tech to test the workers as a group. The report says workers were then given the correct answers to each question, according to the PUC gas safety manager, which they entered onto the test sheet. Later, a Summit representative reportedly altered the results to provide a variety of passing scores.
The PUC's Harry Lanphear says the process was indefensible. "The evaluation process was absolutely flawed," he says.
The consent agreement reached between the PUC and Summit does not assign any blame in issuing the penalty. The commission's final decision on the size of the Summit violation fines is scheduled for next Tuesday.