Former technician admits to falsifying weld records on Mariner East pipeline

A former pipeline technician admitted Monday he falsified documents indicating welds on the Mariner East pipeline in Westmoreland County had been properly X-rayed when they had not been.

Joshua Springer of Scottdale, Westmoreland County, had worked on Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2 pipeline between May 2017 and June 2018, mostly responsible for a 20-mile segment between Houston, Pa., and Delmont.

His job was to take X-rays of welds and interpret the data to make sure the welds were good, then record the findings in reports sent to Energy Transfer, a Texasbased energy company.

Energy Transfer had previously said that the company’s outside auditors discovered the falsified records in 2018, before the pipeline was put into service. The company said it immediately reported the fraud to regulatory authorities and Mr. Springer was fired by his employer.

Energy Transfer said it had reinspected all welds in the section where Mr. Springer had worked and found all in compliance.

The three Mariner East pipelines carry natural gas between the Marcellus and Utica shales in Ohio, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania to processing plants near Philadelphia.

The U.S. attorney’s office did not identify Mr. Springer’s employer but said he was a radiograph technician for a company that performed “nondestructive testing” on the pipeline.

He was responsible for testing welds and interpreting the results of the tests, developing film, signing reader sheets and certifying the quality and integrity of the welds.

The testing typically involved taking three X-rays of each weld, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Karl. The results — including whether the X-ray of the weld was acceptable or rejected, the number of the weld and other technical data — are all recorded on a reader sheet maintained by Energy Transfer as required by the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration.

Mr. Springer falsified various reader sheets, according to his plea, by creating and signing sheets indicating that certain welds had been X-rayed and were acceptable “knowing in truth and fact that he signed and certified reader sheets for welds where he intentionally substituted X-ray exposures from different welds,” said Mr. Karl. “He did this because one of the original X-ray exposures was unacceptable and contained a defect on the film. Rather than re-shoot the weld and correctly interpret the radiograph, [he] purposefully substituted an exposure from a different weld that he knew would be acceptable.”

According to Mr. Karl, an outside audit determined Mr. Springer did this 77 times.