Judge’s ruling affirmed
Mariner East pipelines can keep flowing as PUC rejects shutdown request over safety
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission on Thursday upheld a judge’s decision not to block operations of the controversial Mariner East pipelines after southeastern Pennsylvania residents contended they were unsafe.
Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Barnes denied an emergency request by seven Delaware and Chester county residents on Dec. 11 to block the startup of Sunoco Pipeline’s Mariner East 2 pipelines and to shut down the older Mariner East 1.
The five-member PUC unanimously affirmed the judge’s ruling. Commissioner David Sweet called it “thorough and wellreasoned” and said there was not sufficient evidence to reverse it.
Mariner East 2 started service Dec. 29. Sunoco used a 12-inch, 1930s-era pipeline that previously carried petroleum products as a link around unfinished sections of the new pipeline where regulators shut down construction after the project caused sinkholes and disrupted drinking water supplies.
The $5 billion cross-state pipeline project is designed to move natural gas liquids — like ethane, propane and butane — from southwestern Pennsylvania’s shale gas wells to the Marcus Hook industrial complex and port near Philadelphia.
The residents argued that the new and existing pipelines carrying highly volatile liquids through densely populated southeastern Pennsylvania are inherently dangerous, too shallow and close to homes, and that the company has not developed proper emergency management plans in case of a failure.
Judge Barnes, who had previously ordered a temporary shutdown of the pipelines in a different case, ruled against the residents, saying they had not proven that the pipelines posed a clear danger to life or property that justified an emergency shutdown until the full case can be resolved.
On Thursday, Commissioner Andrew Place said the full case can now move forward “to examine the numerous issues raised,” including the fact that Mariner East 2 is now operating with the workaround pipeline.
The 350-mile pipeline project across southern Pennsylvania is among the largest infrastructure projects in the state in decades.
Its progress has been hampered by hundreds of permit violations for spills, water supply disruptions and ground subsidence, as well as safety concerns and mounting public opposition. Most recently, Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan opened a criminal investigation into the pipelines’ construction, which Sunoco has called baseless.
Sunoco’s parent company, Energy Transfer LP, has said it expects the second of the twin Mariner East 2 pipelines to begin service in late 2019.