This week the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality settled a case with a UK-based utility company with a lighter punishment than initially expected. The original penalty was announced as the largest environmental fine in state history.
In August, The DEQ levied a $3.17 million fine against Severn Trent Services, which operated the drinking water system in Hugo. The Journal Record’s Sarah Terry-Cobo reports the company agreed Tuesday to pay less than $1 million:
The company agreed to pay a $25,000 penalty in cash to the DEQ. The remaining $930,000 will be used for the agency’s small community supplemental environmental projects fund, which provides funding to upgrade drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. The company has until June 1 to pay. DEQ Executive Director Scott Thompson said the $25,000 fine could be used to defray the administrative costs of the case. He said he would like to use a portion of the $930,000 to help Hugo with upgrades and construction work needed to bring the plant into compliance. However, Hugo’s water treatment plant likely needs a few million dollars’ worth of work, Thompson said.
As Terry-Cobo told KGOU in August, the issues involved equipment and reporting violations from January 2013 through March 2015 at the plant that serves about 8,000 Hugo residents:
The maximum penalty for Safe Drinking Water Act Violations is $10,000 per violation per day. The DEQ found the company had chlorine problems in the system 789 times in 317 days over a 27-month period. Thompson said it’s common that fines are reduced when an agency and a company negotiate a resolution to a compliance order. “Your choices are to litigate it, which is expensive and takes a long time, or to settle,” he said. “It is beneficial to use the money to help some of those towns like Hugo for their water infrastructure needs.”
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