Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Pipeline construction scheduled to resume
Sunoco: Pipeline will be up and running by end of June
After resuming drilling and digging, Sunoco Pipeline announced that it expects the Mariner East 2 pipeline to be transporting highly volatile liquids by the end of June 2018 – just four months away.
Despite seeing construction on the $2.5 billion project shut down for more than month across the state by the Department of Environmental Protection for repeated violations, including the fouling of more than 30 West Whiteland Township residential water wells, Sunoco expects to meet the target date they first set three months ago.
When completed, Mariner East 2 is expected to transport hundreds of thousands of barrels of ethane, butane and propane from the state Mar-
cellus Shale region’s on a 350-mile jaunt across the full width of the state to a storage complex being constructed at the company’s former refinery site in Marcus Hook.
The controversial project has been dogged by problems during construction and persistent opposition by community residents who oppose the routing of the pipeline through densely populated neighborhoods and within a few hundred yards of elementary schools. Citizens and some elected officials continue to press the state and local government entities to perform a risk assessment study on the project.
Most of the work on Mariner East 2 has been completed. With one 1930s-era pipeline (Mariner East 1) already functioning, a third pipeline in most of the same right of way is expected to be completed by mid-2019.
Jeff Shields, Sunoco Pipeline communications manager released the following statement on Tuesday: “We are dedicated to completing the Mariner East pipeline safely and according to the detailed terms of our updated environmental permits. Thousands of working men and women in the Delaware Valley have helped us get to this point, and with 94 percent of mainline construction complete and 83 percent of drills completed or underway, we look forward to our region experiencing the full economic benefit of this project. We expect Mariner East 2 to be in service by the end of the second quarter.”
Plans call for the Sunoco Mariner East 2 pipeline to zig-zag 350 miles from the Marcellus shale deposits in West Virginia, Ohio and western Pennsylvania to the former Sunoco Refinery in Marcus Hook, Delaware County. It would carry ethane, butane and propane and pass through high-density areas and within less than 100 feet from several schools, churches and senior care centers.
State Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-19, issued a release last week that questions the stability of planned for pipeline sites.
“Karst formations are prone to developing sinkholes and other geologic problems,” Dinniman said. “Sunoco knows this, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection knows this, and we know this. In fact, PennDOT has even been dealing with issues related to karst beneath our roads for decades.”
Karst is a geologic term for an area that sits in part on limestone that has been eroded by flowing water, producing sinkholes, caves, and fissures. This makes drilling risky due to gaps, ridges, and channels in the limestone.
George Alexander, spokesperson for DelChesco United for Pipeline Safety, released the following statement on Tuesday:
“To placate its nervous investors and customers, Sunoco has predicted one unattainable deadline after another in the course of constructing its property value-killing export pipeline. This latest deadline is no different. Because Gov. Wolf appears to have coordinated Sunoco’s permit suspension for a time when little or no work was planned anyway, it’s not surprising that Sunoco claims the suspension didn’t change its schedule. But, as the latest round of error-filled permit submissions shows, Sunoco will be damaging water supplies and causing economic devastation across southeast Pennsylvania through Election Day and beyond.”