Middletown must release pipeline emails
To The Times: As taxpayers and voters who elect our township supervisors and council persons , who are our employees and serve us at our will, we are inherently entitled to have access to all communication between Middletown Township Council Members and Energy Transfer Corporation , a Texas for profit corporation which is listed on the NYSE.
To ensure government transparency, it is essential for citizens to have access to township communications, including those with out- of -state pipeline builders. However, Middletown Township Council remains opposed to providing residents with access to all their email communications with Energy Transfer despite the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Judge Barry Dozer’s ruling on Oct. 15 ordering Middletown Township to release these communications, which Glen Riddle Station Apartments requested over a year ago. Coincidentally, Energy Transfer has also refused to release these requested communications.
In addition, on Oct. 5 the Attorney General of Pennsylvania , Josh Shapiro, announced 48 criminal charges including one felony, against Energy Transfer for drilling leaks, the use of unapproved additives to those same fluids and the intentional failure to report numerous incidents of soil and water contamination for the Mariner East 2 pipeline construction. Despite these new criminal charges filed against Energy Transfer, Middletown Township continues to withhold the right to know information required by Judge Dozer.
For the past six years, as indicated by criminal charges filed by the Attorney General of PA, Josh Shapiro, against Energy Transfer , the community has suffered the contamination of our private and public water sources and pollution of our soil as a consequence of the Mariner East 2 pipeline construction. The Mariner East pipelines transport highly volatile liquified
gases, primarily ethane, to the Marcus Hook export facility to foreign countries overseas to manufacture plastics.
That would explain Middletown Township’s Council’s continuing refusal to release it’s email communications with Energy Transfer not only in opposition to Judge Dozer’s ruling but given Josh Shapiro’s court filing of
criminal charges against Energy Transfer?
The township council members have a legal obligation to protect the health ,safety and welfare of the Middletown township resident . The release of the email communications with Energy Transfer would presumably establish that the township council members practiced due diligence, in accordance
with their legal obligation in their protracted interaction with Energy Transfer.
Middletown Township’s individual Council Members refusal to release their email correspondence with Energy Transfer only raises implicating questions and perhaps misleading answers.