EP Water fined $2M for Frontera wastewater dump into Rio Grande - KTSM 9 News
EP Water fined $2M for Frontera wastewater dump into Rio Grande | KTSM 9 News
EL PASO, Texas ( KTSM) — The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has approved to fine El Paso Water over two million dollars after the utility reportedly discharged 1.25 billion gallons of wastewater into the Rio Grande between August 2021 and January 2022, according to El Paso Water.
As KTSM has previously reported, in August of 2021, major parallel wastewater pipelines in West El Paso, also known as the Frontera Force Mains, experienced multiple breaks which resulted in El Paso Water redirecting wastewater into the Rio Grande for the next five months.
El Paso Water says it was in the process of a two-year project to replace the pipelines after a condition assessment revealed significant corrosion. The utility says the project began in March of 2020 and was 60 percent complete when the major breaks happened.
“EP Water fully cooperated with TCEQ from the onset of the wastewater emergency discharge and expended upwards of an estimated $7 million as part of the cleanup.” the utility said.
The new line became operational in December 2021, and discharge to the river stopped in early January 2022, according to the utility.
The agreed ordered says the administrative penalty amount of $2,016,000 assessed by the TCEQ, will be offset by El Paso Water’s performance of a ‘Supplemental Environmental Project’ (SEP), according to the utility.
The utility adds the SEP was “performed as part of the settlement of an enforcement action brought by TCEQ.”
The penalty offset means that the utility will not have to divert ratepayer funds from approved budget expenditures for the penalty, according to El Paso Water.
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