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EPA Files $10,000 Complaint Against Fairbanks Man for Wetlands Violation

Release Date: 6/14/2004
Contact Information: Steve Roy
roy.steve@epamail.epa.gov
(206) 553-6221

June 14, 2004


Stanley Pieniazek filled wetlands near University of Alaska-Fairbanks

The Seattle office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has filed a complaint proposing a $10,000 penalty against Stanley Pieniazek of Fairbanks for illegally destroying wetlands on the Ballaine Lake subdivision property he owns near the Fairbanks campus of the University of Alaska.
According to the EPA’s complaint, beginning in the summer of 1999 and continuing at least through September 2002, Pieniazek directed the operation of dump trucks and other earthmoving equipment which were used to discharge gravel, dirt, sand, sod, and other materials into open water and wetlands at the site which is adjacent to Noyes Slough and contributes its flow through the Chena, Tanana, and Yukon Rivers to the Bering Sea.

On April 16, 2003, the EPA ordered Pieniazek to restore the site. However, Pieniazek never responded to the EPA order, consistent with his pattern of refusing service of correspondence from regulatory agencies and ignoring specific warnings to cease his unauthorized activities.

Subsequent visits by the EPA and the Army corps of Engineers have revealed that none of the work required in the EPA order has been done and the gravel, dirt, sand, sod, and other materials that should have been removed remained in place.

Pieniazek has until June 25 to respond to the EPA complaint.