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COLUMBIA -- House lawmakers on Thursday questioned state transportation officials about a 2002 settlement of environmental violations, including some in Greenville County and the Upstate, that resulted in the payment of $3 million for fines and completion of a project.

Six of the problems cited by state environmental officials were turned over to the U.S. Environmental Protection agency, which then assessed the transportation agency $655,728 in fines, state highway engineer Tony Chapman told a House subcommittee.

The state then proposed, and EPA accepted, a deal in which the state paid $150,000 in fines and spent another $2.9 million for an environmental project.

The agency, in addition, has paid $93,880 in fines for seven additional cases dated between 1992 and 2005, some involving drums of lead-based paint buried in DOT shop yards in the 1960s, Chapman said.

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He said the environmental project developed a new way of disposing of trees and shrubs cut in clearing land, something that still is a benefit to the agency.

But that didn't impress lawmakers.

"I don't know if you all buy cars over there, but you need to learn how to negotiate," said Rep. Brian White of Anderson.

Rep. Annette Young, who is chairing the agency, told Chapman that his version "almost makes me think we should write EPA a thank-you note."

Among the EPA cases were violations resulting from the construction of the Southern Connector in Greenville County.

According to the Legislative Audit Council, whose critical report last month spawned the legislative hearings, a lack of proper stormwater controls over 19 months resulted in seven discharges of sediment into six streams or rivers in the county.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control, and later EPA, also cited DOT for the sewage lagoon used by the welcome center in Fair Play. Sewage discharges from the facility exceeded permissible limits 64 times between 1996 and 2001, according to the audit.

"We had some serious problems there, no question about it," Chapman told lawmakers. He said the system has since been transferred to a county system.

DHEC also cited DOT's Gaffney maintenance facility for improperly documenting chemically treated timbers to a landfill and for discharging used oil onto asphalt and soil.

Chapman said private contractors, who bore responsibility for some of the violations, later paid DOT $80,000 toward the fines. He said the agency does a better job of preventing environmental problems.