Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
School officials voice concerns over pipeline
“All we are asking, is this safe to do?” asked West Chester Area School District Superintendent Jim Scanlon during a Friday phone interview.
Three school superintendents seek answers concerning pipeline safety. They wonder whether reuse of an 80-year-old pipeline to ship highly volatile liquids near schools is safe.
Scanlon, and supers from Downingtown Area School District and Rose Tree Media School District are calling for a safety investigation of Sunoco’s 12-inch pipeline as part of the Mariner East project.
Sunoco plans to connect parts
of the recently built Mariner East Pipeline while using an existing 80-year old pipeline in areas of Chester and Delaware counties where pipeline work has stalled.
In a letter dated October 23, the superintendents of the three districts - Scanlon, Emilie Lonardi of DASD, and Eleanor DiMarinoLinnen, RTMSD - asked Paul Metro, manager of gas safety of Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to conduct a safety investigation into the 80-year-old, 12-inch pipeline which Sunoco plans to use to transport hazardous and highly volatile natural gas liquids.
“We believe it is incumbent upon school districts to keep students, parents, and staff safe,” wrote the supers. “We also believe it is incumbent upon the PUC and the leaders of the state of Pennsylvania to keep its residents safe.”
Sunoco plans to link three new and existing pipes – a new 20-inch pipe (the original Mariner East 2), a new16-inch pipe (originally dubbed “Mariner East 2X”), and the repurposed 12-inch petroleum pipeline – in an attempt to salvage the long-delayed and controversial Mariner East pipeline project.
Opponents have dubbed the bypass using the older pipeline as “Frankenpipe.”
Lonardri noted Friday during a phone call that five DASD schools are located near to the old 12 inch pipeline.
“We’re in the thick of this pipeline,” she said. “Thousands of students are in harm’s way if something happens to the pipeline.
“We’re asking the PUC to make sure that Sunoco is doing their job and has every safety mechanism in place before any liquid begins to flow.”
The project is 18 months overdue and Sunoco missed another deadline Oct. 1. Sunoco representatives recently said that completion as originally intended is now scheduled for late 2020.
The PUC has indicated that it does not need to approve the switch for Sunoco to move forward.
Pipeline construction is still halted at Lisa Drive in West Whiteland Township after large sinkholes developed in several backyards. The well water of about 30 homeowners was fouled and Sunoco paid to hook up residents to public water and paid each homeowner $60,000 in Uwchlan. And, several frackouts have developed at construction sites.
State Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-19, has battled against Sunoco and state agencies for several years.
“Sunoco is trying to cobble together this problematic pipeline after it was repeatedly delayed due to very real and very valid safety concerns,” Dinniman said. “Meanwhile, the PUC continues to refuse to conduct a safety investigation into the project, despite repeated calls from local schools, school districts, teachers, parents, students, and superintendents.
“What’s wrong with this picture?” Dinniman asked.
There are nearly a dozen schools and daycare facilities in Chester County (and 40 statewide) located dangerously close to or within the thermal impact or what some call a “blast zone” of the Mariner East pipeline project.
Sunoco’s current plans to resuscitate an aging 12inch line as part of the project now means that even more schools are likely in the line of fire, including some that may be potentially impacted on two or more sides, Dinniman said.
Specifically, the superintendents asked:
1. What is the risk for unprotected valve stations, currently many of these valve stations have temporary fencing without adequate protection from a possible accident?
2. Is it safe to run natural gas liquid through this 12-inch pipe?
3. Does this old 12-inch pipe contain shut off valves for emergency shut off in the event of a breach?
“While we are not experts in the area of safely transporting chemical products through a 12-inch pipeline we are often asked by our parents about our plans in the case of a catastrophic breach or explosion in this pipe,” the supers wrote. “We need help from the PUC to answer the question about safety.
“We understand that Sunoco is planning on transporting product in the near future. We all have developed safety and evacuation plans for hazardous disasters, however, our plans did not take into consideration the risks and dangers involved with moving product through an 80-year-old pipe.”
Meanwhile, Dinniman said, no notification requirements whatsoever are in place to help protect students, teachers and staff in the case of an emergency.
“At the bare minimum, our schools need to have lines of communication open with pipeline companies and operators and the PUC so that they know what pipelines are nearby and what the risks are in order to adequately prepare for an evacuation in the case of a potential emergency,” Dinniman said. “The fact that they don’t is inexcusable.”
In response, Dinniman has introduced Senate Bill 1257 to require pipeline operators to provide schools located within 1,000 feet of hazardous liquids and natural gas pipelines, with vital emergency response information, including how to respond to a leak or product release.
Dinniman said the PUC’s failure or refusal to exercise its authority over the hybrid Mariner East project coupled with the unanswered concerns of local school districts and superintendents, have led him to consider stronger legislative options in restructuring the agency.
“If the PUC can’t step up to do its job in approving pipeline plans, conducting a risk assessment, or even protecting our school children, I have to wonder what its purpose is?” Dinniman asked.
He also noted that Scanlon
and Lonardi, who represent Chester County’s two largest school districts, previously wrote separate letters to the administration with similar concerns about the Mariner East project in March. Lonardi wrote a second letter over the summer when Sunoco announced plans to repurpose the 12-inch pipeline – a pipeline that, she noted, presents an “even larger safety threat” to the district as it runs very near to five of its school buildings.
According to the state senator, Scanlon and Lonardi received cursory responses to their first two letters, with the governor writing that, “The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission alone has the authority to perform a risk assessment or safety study, and we have agreed with others’ calls for such a study to be undertaken.”
“Our children deserve a response from the PUC in terms of safety and evacuation concerns,” Dinniman said.