BY LAURA LEGERE, Times-Shamrock Writer

A pipeline crossing under a high-value Susquehanna County stream is now “in ship-shape condition” after several spills this summer muddied the creek, Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator said after a tour of the site late last week.

Drilling mud – a mixture of nontoxic bentonite clay and water – seeped through natural weaknesses in rock and soil as Laser Northeast Gathering Co. was boring a path for the natural gas pipeline under Laurel Lake Creek inSilverLakeTwp.at least five times between July and September.

A stream survey found that the spills did not impact aquatic life in the creek, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer said.

DEP shut down the operation for several days in August and allowed Laser to resume work after the company agreed to use protective measures to reduce the chance of problems and prevent damage from any future spills, called inadvertent returns. Those measures were in place during a spill in September and were credited by state regulators with preventing damage to the creek.

“Touring Laurel Lake Creek, where Laser has now completed this phase of the project, you would never know that boring operations ever occurred there,” Mr. Krancer said in a statement after he toured the area on Oct. 7. “Everything in and around where Laser bored under Laurel Lake Creek is in ship-shape condition.”

Mr. Krancer also toured a site with active boring under nearby Trecoske Creek and found Laser’s contingency measures “working exactly as designed.”

“The entire project is now almost fully completed and it will add important delivery capacity to deliver this clean-burning fuel to market,” he said.

Mr. Krancer’s comments incensedSilverLakeresident Craig Stevens, a frequent critic of the industry with property along Laurel Lake Creek who called the secretary’s statement “insulting” and a “PR promotion fluff piece.”

Laser is currently working on Mr. Stevens’ property and he said he could have “showed (Mr. Krancer) some scary stuff that’s going on with Laser, but instead he went with them on the happy tour.”

“I don’t know what they’re looking at but if you come to my backyard and look over my bank, that creek will never be the same,” he said.

The 30-mile Susquehanna Gathering System will transport gas from the Marcellus Shale throughSusquehannaCountyandBroome County,N.Y., where it will connect with an interstate pipeline.

Laurel Lake Creek is part of the Silver Creek watershed, portions of which have been determined to have “exceptional value” by DEP – the designation for the state’s most pristine streams.