Pipeline foes get chance to air grievances

The gang was all there: the Clean Air Council, state Rep. Chris Quinn, the state Public Utility Commission, state Department of Environmental Resources, Delaware County Emergency Services, the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, and lots of residents.

The only person missing was likely the one person all these citizens would most like to engage in a face-to-face conversation: Gov. Tom Wolf.

Oh, and one other entity was notably absent. Quinn said he offered an invitation for a representative from Sunoco Logistics or their parent company, Energy Transfer Partners. No such representative was in attendance.

And what could possibly bring all these people together? Only one thing in this neck of Penn’s Woods.

That would be Sunoco’s massive multi-billion dollar project to transport hundreds of thousands of barrels of volatile gases such as ethane, butane and propane through their communities to the former refinery in Marcus Hook.

Once it’s there it will be stored and shipped, mostly to overseas outlets.

But not before it has to traverse densely populated neighborhoods, 11 miles across western Delaware County and 25 miles through the heart of Chester County.

The only thing missing Tuesday was the “Mama Bears.” That’s the small cadre of mothers and grandmothers who are so exasperated at the state’s inattention to their concerns about the pipeline that they took it upon themselves to sit down and have a picnic on a pipeline construction site last week. Two of them were arrested when they declined to disperse when asked to do so by state police.

The scene this week at a legislative hearing at Penn State Brandywine was much less confrontational.

That should not be interpreted as any lessening of the push to derail this project on the part of residents, who have for months been protesting the notion of putting this pipeline in their neighborhoods, and irate with what they consider to be shoddy oversight on the part of Wolf and state agencies who they thought were looking out for their well-being.

The residents’ message was clear. They want the project, which the company now claims is more than 95 percent complete, shut down.

Eve Miari represents the Clean Air Council. She made the case that the state has failed to protect the public’s safety, to say nothing of the air and clean water. She cited “absent regulation, or an inability or unwillingness of agencies to enforce existing regulations.”

Patrick McDonnell sat and listened carefully to their pleas. He’s the secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

He explained what the state agency has done – and maybe more importantly what it can’t do. DEP’s bailiwick is restricted to the impact of the pipeline on ground and water resources in the state, especially when it comes to pipeline construction.

The residents’ great fear, however, is what is actually flowing through that pipeline.

For the state’s part, McDonnell said DEP had placed more than 100 special conditions on the Mariner East 2 project. “Unprecedented,” is what he called it.

He also reminded residents that the state had shut down construction on Mariner East 2 back in January after a series of problems that plagued construction. Sunoco agreed to pay a $12 million fine in order to get work back on line.

Work now is still shut down in West Whiteland Township in Chester County as the company and state investigate sinkholes that have developed along the pipeline route.

There are several lawsuits against the pipeline, any of which could lead to a shutdown.

But Sunoco has recently indicated they are considering using an old, existing pipeline in areas where construction has not been completed in order to get the project finished and online.

Several residents have pointed out that the pipeline Sunoco wants to use has not been without problems of its own, citing leaks that have occurred on the line in the past.

Residents very well may lose the battle, unable to shut down the pipeline project.

But they have no intention of remaining silent. In fact, as the “Mama Bears Brigade” proved last week, they plan to be even more active.

They might even take their fight to the ballot box.