Judge pauses pipeline drilling
Sunoco project halted after spilled lubricant polluted water supplies
A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday put an immediate, two-week hold on directional drilling for Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 pipeline, affecting 55 locations where the underground boring activity is taking place across the state’s southern tier.
Environmental Hearing Board Judge Bernard Labuskes Jr. halted the construction activity until 9 a.m. Aug. 7, when he has scheduled a hearing on earthmoving and watercrossing permit challenges brought by environmental organizations.
Complaints about the controversial project have mounted in recent weeks after a drilling lubricant spill tainted 14 drinking water supplies in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Gov. Tom Wolf joined the chorus of concern last week, when he said he had directed the state Department of Environmental Protection “to do what they are legally able and feel is appropriate to ensure the operator is held accountable.”
Sunoco’s $2.5 billion pipeline project traverses 350 miles through 17 counties, with the goal of transporting natural gas liquids from Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus and Utica shales to a terminal in southeastern Pennsylvania for export and some domestic use. Sunoco Pipeline is a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners.
Horizontal directional drilling is used for tunneling beneath waterways and other obstructions along the pipeline route. DEP has started keeping a public tally of Sunoco’s spills — known in the industry as
“inadvertent returns” — during its directional drilling for Mariner East 2.
The department’s count includes 49 separate spills since May, including 20 in Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington and Indiana counties. It has issued the company four violation notices and an $87,600 penalty, and expects to take additional enforcement actions.
The agency issued an order Monday for the company to address contamination of an aquifer in Chester County that caused cloudy, discolored or diminished drinking water in 14 private wells. Sunoco is providing the homeowners with temporary replacement water supplies, but the order requires the company to develop a long-term fix. The order also forbids Sunoco from resuming directional drilling in that area until it gets DEP approval.
The drilling lubricant Sunoco uses is a non-toxic mix of water and bentonite clay that is “not expected to have any lasting effects on impacted waters of the commonwealth,” DEP said last week.
Environmental groups challenging the permits — Clean Air Council, Mountain Watershed Association and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network — said in their petition to halt the directional drilling that the spills “have polluted multiple exceptional value wetlands, high-quality trout streams, ponds, groundwater, and uplands,” as well as contaminated the Chester County wells.
Judge Labuskes wrote that he may modify his order if Sunoco provides evidence that halting drilling would cause equipment damage, safety risks or “more environmental harm than good.”
Sunoco spokesman Jeff Shields said the company had already voluntarily suspended work at several directional drilling sites to address the state’s concerns and it will continue other types of construction activity for the pipeline while the judge’s order is in effect.
“We believe that the full hearing before the Environmental Hearing Board will demonstrate that we have expended every effort to meet the strict conditions of our environmental permits,” he said.