Gas power plants face $97,000 in fines for water use

• Marie Cusick
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  Marie Cusick was the Harrisburg reporter for StateImpact Pennsylvania.

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission is considering $97,000 in penalties against a Dallas, Texas based private equity firm building three natural gas power plants in Pennsylvania.
At its December 8th meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, the SRBC will consider proposed settlement agreements with Panda Power Funds, for mishandling water usage at its plants in Lycoming, Bradford, and Synder counties. The commission is the regulatory body managing water resources in the Susquehanna River Basin and was created by a compact between the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the federal government.
Panda Power spokesman Bill Pentak says the initial permits were granted to a previous developer and didn’t meet the plant requirements.
“We approached the SRBC and worked collaboratively to get to a solution which included the payments,” he says.
The proposed settlement agreement for the Patriot Power Plant in Lycoming County includes a penalty of $44,250 for using unapproved water sources during construction and exceeding daily water withdrawals during commissioning from its approved public water supply source. The proposed agreement on the Liberty Power Plant in Bradford County is a penalty of $30,000 for exceeding water withdrawals from an unapproved groundwater source and approved public water supply source during construction and commissioning. Both plants came online earlier this year.
A third proposed penalty of $22,750 is for using approved water sources during construction at the Hummel Power plant, which is at the site of the former Sunbury coal plant in Shamokin Dam, Synder County.
 
 
 
 

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