Wood Group PSN to pay $9.5 million for Clean Water Act violations
Staff Writer |
Wood Group PSN, a Nevada corporation headquartered in Houston, Tx., was ordered to pay $9.5 million in two separate cases involving their conduct in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Specifically, Wood Group PSN was ordered to pay $7 million for falsely reporting over several years that personnel had performed safety inspections on offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico in the Western District of Louisiana.
$1.8 million is for negligently discharging oil into the Gulf of Mexico in violation of the Clean Water Act after an explosion on an offshore facility in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Wood Group PSN was also ordered to pay $700,000 in community service to projects in the areas where the criminal conduct took place.
Wood Group PSN’s Clean Water Act conviction stems from an explosion on Black Elk Energy Offshore Operations’s (BEE) offshore oil production facility located at area West Delta 32 in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to court documents, BEE had contracted with Wood Group PSN for individuals to man and conduct production operations at the West Delta 32 facility.
Co-defendants, BEE and GIS face manslaughter charges, and Curtis Dantin, Christopher Srubar, and Don Moss face criminal violations of the Clean Water Act in the Eastern District of Louisiana before the Honorable Judge Jane Triche Milazzo.
BEE also faces eight felony counts of regulatory violations under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
Charges against Don Moss, Christopher Srubar, Curtis Dantin, and GIS under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that were dismissed by the district court are pending an interlocutory appeal by the government to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. ■
A very active and complex mid-May weather pattern is set to produce numerous areas of severe weather, heavy rain, high winds, and anomalous temperatures through this weekend.