Summit to pay $25K fine for safety violations
Summit Natural Gas of Maine will pay a $25,000 fine after reaching a settlement with the Maine Public Utilities Commission for a series of alleged safety violations.
The Portland Press Herald reported that Summit’s fine comes after the PUC alleged that contractors last summer were doing pipeline work without the correct qualifications and that documents were falsified to give the appearance that the contractors were qualified.
PUC staff had initially recommended a $100,000 fine for the alleged violations.
A report by PUC Gas Safety Manager Gary Kenny found that workers employed by the contractors, Phoenix-based Tetra Tech Construction Inc. and Westbrook-based CCB Inc., were not qualified for the pipeline work they were doing for Summit.
The report said after the PUC began investigating the workers’ qualifications, Summit gathered Tetra Tech workers in its office and had them complete a qualifications test with the correct answers being read aloud to them. A Summit representative then entered the test results into a database with different grades to give the appearance they weren’t all “getting 100,” according to the report.
PUC’s report was based on a review of personnel records and following up on observations.
The newspaper noted that Summit’s settlement doesn’t place blame on any party. However, Summit did agree to conduct test-taking with an external proctor in the future and to maintain proper personnel documentation, the newspaper added.
Stacey Fitts, Summit’s director of governmental and regulatory affairs, told the Press Herald that a small percent of the 700 pipeline workers had been unqualified and that Summit didn’t have a role in manipulating the tests. He said those workers have “been re-inspected and in many cases replaced.”
Summit and the PUC are still negotiating three other cases of alleged safety violations, the newspaper said. One of them recommends a $150,000 fine for improper pipeline installation.
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