Time to get to bottom of the Big Stink
Delco is starting to stink.
Literally.
First you had the mysterious gas odor that first popped up along Route 291 in Ridley and Chester two weeks ago. That stench eventually wafted over large parts of western and central Delaware County.
The smell eventually dissipated, but it returned this week, with another pungent, petroleum smell descending on the area, sparking another wave of calls to the county 911 Center.
Some people were reporting being sickened by the fumes.
In both cases, county Emergency Services boss Tim Boyce dispatched crews, but they were unable to detect the source of the problem. And if that was not enough, just for good measure, Monday night a Sunoco petroleum pipeline valve station sprung a leak in Middletown, spraying a gas mist over the area and forcing the county to ask residents in the area, including the large apartment complex next door, to shelter in place. Officials stressed that this is not one of the pipelines involved the controversial Mariner East project.
Now, an exasperated Boyce is fed up.
He went to the weekly meeting of Delaware County Council Wednesday and asked them to launch a formal criminal investigation into all these instances. Boyce already has reached out the state Department of Environmental Protection to help in the investigation.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the pipeline leak is that Boyce says the county was never directly notified of the problem. They received calls from neighbors and when a county response crew got there, a team from Energy Transfer/Sunoco was already working to remedy the situation.
That should not happen, and only reinforces longheld complaints from pipeline foes that the company remains unresponsive to their issues, and fails to adequately notify residents and county officials when there is a leak or other problem.
So far we’ve been lucky. No serious injuries from any of these events has been recorded.
That does not meant the county is not taking these events seriously. Boyce has consistently noted that both county officials and citizens deserve answers as to why these things keep happening.
Boyce clearly believes this mystery odor is no accident, that someone – or some entity- is willfully doing this, perhaps in some kind of chemical release.
And he’s vowing to get to the bottom of it.
Getting to the bottom of the already shaky relations with Energy Transfer and Sunoco regarding pipeline issues may be even harder to do.
From its inception, the multibillion dollar project that will ferry hundreds of thousands of barrels of volatile liquid gases across the full width of Pennsylvania from the Marcellus Shale regions to a facility at the old Sun refinery in Marcus Hook, has met with stern opposition.
Residents questioned the routing, which takes these liquid gases at very high pressure through densely populated neighborhoods, and right past schools and senior citizen centers. They have questioned the effect on their property values, and watched as construction has spoiled the bucolic beauty of neighborhoods they paid a pretty penny to join. They also have peppered their local and county officials as to how this plan was allowed to unfold the way it did. And they have been all over Gov. Tom Wolf and state environmental leaders for failing to hold Energy Transfer’s feet to the fire.
Work on the pipeline has been halted – but not shut down permanently – several times in the wake of a series of runoffs, leaks and sinkholes.
District attorneys in both Chester and Delaware counties have launched investigations into the pipeline work. Chester County D.A. Tom Hogan has empaneled a grand jury to hear from witnesses and review evidence. Delco D.A. Kat Copeland has joined forces with state Attorney General Josh Shapiro for an investigation.
But it was incidents like the one Monday night – even though it did not involve the Mariner East pipelines – that likely raises the angst level of residents and other pipeline foes.
One of their repeated complaints is that Energy Transfer and Sunoco has never adequately laid out how residents would be notified in the event of an emergency, or in the worst case, an evacuation order in the case of a catastrophic leak or explosion. A blast zone extends more than a mile from the pipeline.
A county study downplayed the risk, noting residents are just as or even more likely to be injured in a car accident or a fall. However, the report also pointed that if such an incident were to occur, it likely would be catastrophic.
Which makes Monday night’s response to the leak at a valve station along the old petroleum line even more problematic.
Boyce clearly was frustrated by the series of events, which saw an Energy Transfer crew on the scene, before the county crew arrived, and before county officials were notified. Boyce explained the 911 Center received a resident call reporting a smell of gasoline in the Tunbridge Apartments area.
Boyce said when first responders arrived “at the valve station ... there were contractors working already. Those contractors reported they had a product release on the campus that they were attempting to control ... I was told by the first responders that they saw a pooling of the product on the ground and significant pooling of product.”
He emphatically said no one notified him specifically about the situation.
Energy Transfer suggested they did notify local officials.
“It is always our goal to communicate as quickly and efficiently as possible with all the appropriate entities, including Delaware County officials,” said Energy Transfer Partners spokeswoman Vicki Granado in a statement. “I can confirm that there were representatives from the county onsite that evening along with representatives from Middletown Township, the (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection) and the (Public Utility Commission).”
That would come as news to Boyce.
It also would come as news to residents along the pipeline route, who now have to live with this threat hanging over their heads every day.
We urge County Council to turn up the heat – both on the state and Energy Transfer. We need to know where this mysterious odor is coming from and why. And they need to inform Energy Transfer that their response and communications with county officials during such incidents is lacking.
Tim Boyce is right. The whole thing stinks.