The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has fined Brayton Point LLC, which owns the Brayton Point Commerce Center in Somerset, for depositing construction materials into a pond on the company’s property.
A state inspection last fall found parts of the pond filled with bricks, pipes and rebar.
Last week the company agreed to pay a $17,000 fine and remediate the site.
The company’s executive vice president, Stephen Collins, said that filling the pond was unintentional and will be corrected.
Brayton Point LLC is a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Commercial Development Company.
In 2018, the company took over the waterfront site of a former coal-fire power plant at Brayton Point, with plans to redevelop it to serve the state’s growing offshore wind industry.
So far, the site has been used to store road salt and scrap metal. In May, the federal Environmental Protection Agency fined Patriot Stevedoring & Logistics, which operates at the site, for dropping scrap metal into Mt. Hope Bay. Local residents have also complained of nuisance dust and noise from the scrap metal operations.
Collins acknowledged residents’ complaints but said the scrap metal operation is just a small piece of the company’s long-term plan for the site.
“This is going to be a wonderful port for the wind energy sector,” said Collins. “We’re in active discussions with prospects for that.”
In May, Mayflower Wind announced it would use Brayton Point Commerce Center to bring ashore an electric transmission cable from its planned windfarm about 20 miles south of Nantucket.
