Legal action taken by the county against the operators of a Forest Lake Twp. gas compression site has changed the way the planning commission will look at future developments and could cost the company tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
Susquehanna County Judge Jason J. Legg last month scheduled a July 10 hearing on the Planning Commission’s demand that he put a stop to the operation of a gas compression site on Lake Hill Road because of noise and air quality violations.
In its petition, filed June 23, the county planning commission also asked Legg for a $500-a-day penalty against Xpress National Gas, LLC, after the county learned the company had failed to inform it of a sound study conducted in February that proved the site too noisy for local ordinances.
But a lawyer for Xpress National Gas, LLC, also known as XNG, said in his written response that the 130,000 square foot site had already shut down late last month for the purposes of installing sound deadening measures and wouldn’t open again until the results of another sound study show it to be in compliance.
The $500-a-day penalty, if enforced by the judge, could cost XNG more than $70,000 to the county if calculated from the date XNG opened the site in February. Legg could issue a ruling that day from the bench or issue a written opinion later.
Based in Boston and Stratham, New Hampshire, XNG runs sites like the one on Lake Hill Road which compresses natural gas from local companies to make it easier to transport long distances.
In papers filed in response to the county’s petition, Pittsburgh-based attorney Steven B. Silverman wrote that Susquehanna County Solicitor Michael J. Giangrieco told him the county would drop its request for a restraining order if sound tests show the plant has come into compliance and “the parties can resolve Plaintiff’s request for a monetary payment.”
Central to the county’s frustration with XNG is what the county alleges is the company’s exploitation of the planning board’s long standing practice of granting conditional final approvals to projects.
“Xpress National Gas, LLC continued to operate on the Susquehanna County Planning Commission’s conditional approval after having a Station Sound Study completed on February 7, 2017, which clearly showed that it did not meet the requirements of its conditional approval, without ever notifying the Susquehanna County Planning Commission of the failed Station Sound Study until May 15, 2017,” Giangrieco wrote in his petition.
Because of this case, Susquehanna County will no longer grant conditional final approvals, Hall said at the commissioners June 28 meeting.
“This company has deceived and done what it wanted to do. It didn’t matter what the rules were,” he said.
County officials decided to take XNG to court late last month when both the county planning commission and board of commissioners ran out of patience after months of waiting for long promised but never delivered sound study results before learning the study showed the site to be too loud.
Late last year the Planning Commission told XNG chief administrative officer Seth Berry that it should not put the plant into operation before receiving final approval.
“Final approval is required prior to putting the facility into normal operation,” commission secretary Richard Franks wrote Berry in a December 22 letter.
Prior to that, according to the petition, the planning commission wrote the county commissioners informing them that XNG had begun construction “without first having preliminary approval.”
In February the Planning Commission granted XNG that final approval – again contingent on the results of the sound study -- and the plant began operations. At the time, the petition notes, the commission understood that the sound study was being conducted but that the results would not be in before their next meeting.
But even after learning that the February 7 Station Sound Study conducted by Houston-based noise control consultants Hoover and Keith, Inc., showed it was too loud for local sound ordinances, XNG waited until May to tell the county.
In March the DEP announced that it awarded XNG a $200,000 Alternative Fuels Incentive Grant to allow the company to buy 10 compressed gas transport vehicles. Prior to that, in January, DEP gave XNG $176,000 in job creation tax credits and an $11,050 employee training grant.
But then, in April, the planning commission wrote XNG a reminder that it was still in violation because it still hadn’t received the sound study and because trees it had promised had still not been planted. The commission also noted that residents had complained of smelling gas.
The petition notes that a May 9 e-mail from Robert Pitcavage, the DEP’s local government liasion, advised XNG that the site was in violation of state requirements as “the compressor engines did not qualify for an exemption to the permitting requirements.”
Things came to a head at a contentious June 13 planning commission meeting and the next day at an equally heated commissioners’ meeting where commissioners head Alan Hall verbally berated Berry.
“This is not the Wild Wild West,” Hall told Berry in a loud voice at the June 14 commissioners meeting. “We may be from Susquehanna County, you may think we’re a bunch of damned rednecks, but by golly you’re going to follow our rules in our county.”
“Since when do we have a state that allows building before final approval?” Vera Scroggins, a local community activist, asked Hall at the June 28 commissioners meeting.