Pipeline plans should include community input
The residents of Middletown opposed to construction of a massive new pipeline through their neighborhood are not going away. Neither are their concerns. While Sunoco Logistics is beginning to clear land for the pipeline, residents are trying to clear their conscience of the worries and concerns they have about their troublesome new neighbor.
Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East 2 pipeline will ferry gases such as butane, propane and ethane 350 miles across Pennsylvania from the Marcellus Shale region to the former Sunoco refinery in Marcus Hook.
It has a huge potential upside. Not surprisingly, it has some very powerful boosters with Delaware County Council, the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce, labor unions and other elected officials all touting an economic blockbuster that has the potential to turn down-on-its-luck Marcus Hook into the energy hub for the entire Northeast U.S.
Unfortunately, none of them likely will have this thing running through their back yard, or a few hundred feet from their kids’ elementary school.
Just how “concerned” are local officials, including those in the Rose Tree Media School District, which has come under intense pressure from citizens from residents opposed to the pipeline, and the fact that it will run a stone’s throw from Glenwood Elementary School?
School officials, township officials, first responders, Sunoco Logistics officials – and even a few reps from Homeland Security – all convened recently for a “safety summit” in the district. Don’t pay a lot of attention to that moniker. This was not so much a “safety summit” in the traditional sense that school officials have dealt with in recent years as it was a “pipeline summit,” focused on the potential horror of what could happen should a leak develop in a line carrying volatile gases at very high pressure.
It seems like everyone had a seat at the table. Well, almost. It’s unfortunate that school officials rejected a request from this newspaper to have a reporter sit in on the session.
We weren’t the only ones on the outside looking in. Parents and other concerned citizens also were shut out. Some of them the very same parents who have been voicing concerns about the propriety of having a new pipeline running this close to the school their children attend – and what might happen should the unthinkable occur.
Rose Tree Media Superintendent Jim Wigo said only that releasing any evacuation details would “compromise student safety.” It was a theme shared by others in attendance.
It was not shared by parents and community members.
Ten members of the Middletown Coalition for Community Safety, a grassroots community organization that has sprung up to oppose the pipeline, decided to drop by the recent meeting of their elected school officials and let them know they didn’t appreciate being kept in the dark.
The group has been very active in pushing Middletown Township to spend $40,000 – funds received from the easement the township granted Sunoco Logistics – to have an independent risk assessment of the project done by an outside agency.
The group still believes the pipeline carries with it unnecessary risks in such a densely populated area, to say nothing of the 450 students and staff at Glenwood Elementary, with its playground sitting just 650 feet from the proposed path of the pipeline.
“An elementary school is sort of like the heart center of the community,” said coalition founder and outspoken pipeline critic Eve Miari. “It’s where we send our babies.”
As you might expect, Sunoco Logistics officials see it differently. They point out every potential safety standard has been included in the design of Mariner East 2. They also note something else. Pipelines are not exactly new turf here in southeastern Pennsylvania. In fact there are many older natural gas pipelines traversing the region, including the old Sunoco oil pipeline that has been retrofitted into Mariner East 1, and which is now already safely transporting these gases. Mariner East 2 will run pretty much parallel to Mariner East 1.
Residents dismiss the company’s side of the argument as “spin.”
They went to their school officials seeking answers.
“We had two questions,” Wigo said of the safety summit. “How can we be ultra-safe and what is the plan if there is an incident? We found out questions led to other questions and possibly additional meetings to discuss other issues.”
Wigo and Sunoco Logistics officials can do themselves a favor and ease community concern by being a bit more transparent. They should allow the media and representatives from the community to attend the meetings.
Rose Tree Media officials are right in noting that the pipeline does not actually enter any district property and said there is little the district can do to halt the plans, saying that lies more with municipal government and regulatory agencies.
“We recognize that families are calling on the district to help slow or stop this project, but we have little or no say,” Wigo said. “It will proceed with or without Rose Tree Media’s support and/ or opposition.”
It was left to Tom Smith, also a coalition member and a father of a student at Glenwood Elementary, to add another important perspective.
“Sunoco Logistics has no contractual obligation to me,” Smith said. “I put the safety of my daughter in your hands and you are responsible for our children,” he told school officials.
Mariner East 2 has the potential to be an economic bonanza for the region. It also has the potential for disaster, regardless of how remote that risk is.
Allowing full community participation in the preparation of a plan everyone involved hopes never needs to be used would be a good place to start easing some of those concerns.