Kentucky Fined by Federal Government for Storm Water Violations

The Commonwealth of Kentucky has been cited by the federal government for water pollution related to road construction. The Environmental Protection Agency fined the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet $8,000 for the violation, which happened while widening US-421 in Frankfort.Transportation spokesman Chuck Wolfe says roadway construction can have an adverse impact on the environment if steps aren’t taken to control runoff. He says the cabinet agreed to the settlement.“I think overall we did a very good job on erosion control but there was this one instance where sediment got into a couple of streams and that was documented and that was a violation of the storm water permit,” he said.Susan Pope with the EPA’s Region 4 office says the project’s scale was huge, and the violation was relatively minor.“This was a 71 acre site,” she said. “So it was a very large construction project. It’s only a small portion, a 7 acre portion of this site that actually had violations.”The project was finished several months ago, so Wolfe says there shouldn’t be any more issues with the site.