Intervening in pipeline petition is the right call

Questions about Mariner East are not going away. It should be a huge concern for public officials.

It is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that keeps those who have protested the Mariner East pipeline project awake at night.

On Monday there was a leak of butane at the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex. That is the end point for what eventually will be three separate pipelines transporting hundreds of thousands of barrels of volatile liquid gases such as ethane, butane and propane emanating from the state’s Marcellus Shale regions.

Mariner East 1, which had been online for months, is currently shut down after a sinkhole formed in a backyard of a home in West Whiteland, exposing the pipe. It’s the same neighborhood where sinkholes formed last winter, forcing another shutdown. Mariner East 2 came online the last week of December, albeit not in the form Sunoco and Energy Transfer Partners originally envisioned. Because of construction delays caused by spills, runoffs and state-ordered shutdowns, the company had to fill in gaps in what was supposed to be a 20-inch line with several smaller pipes in a hybrid mishmash in order to meet their deadline to put it online. The full 20-inch line now will not be completed until 2020. Mariner East 2x is still under construction.

Marcus Hook Borough posted a message on their Facebook notifying the public about the leak. Police responded and shut down part of Post Road in the vicinity of the plant. Luckily, in this case, the leak was contained. Then later Monday night, a second leak was reported.

A few months back, a risk analysis on the Mariner East project commissioned by Delaware County Council suggested that the risk of someone being injured or killed in a pipeline incident was about the same as other daily hazards such as a car accident or fire. But it also noted that, if such an incident were to occur, it would be catastrophic. And it also revealed that the danger zone was larger than first thought, as much as 1.8 miles.

That would have put almost all of Marcus Hook at risk. The borough’s downtown is 1,500 feet away. Marcus Hook Elementary School is less than 2,000 feet away.

Again, we stress that no one was injured in either of these leaks. But they add to the fears of those who oppose the Mariner East project and fuel the one question that has hung over this project from the start. What if?

Now Delaware County Council is getting involved again. First it was the risk assessment. This week council voted 4-0 to have county Solicitor Michael Maddren intervene in a petition filed against Sunoco/Energy Transfer Partners with the state Public Utility Commission by seven residents – foes of the pipeline – from Delaware and Chester counties. Council Chairman John McBlain abstained from the vote because his law firm has done work for Sunoco. McBlain himself has not.

Several local school districts, including Rose Tree Media and Downingtown, municipalities such as East Goshen and West Whiteland, and the Andover Homeowners Association have already done so.

Aside from simply opposing the notion of moving such volatile materials through densely populated neighborhoods, in close proximity to schools and senior centers, residents have said they are not satisfied with the information supplied in terms of what they should do in the event of a leak. They also questioned whether local first responders have been adequately kept in the loop concerning such plans.

The company has held several public hearings and insists all the proper protocols are in place.

That has not satisfied residents, nor dulled their concerns.

Rosemarie Fuller, who lives in Middletown, is one of those who filed the PUC complaint. She knows all too well the angst of having Mariner East for a neighbor.

“If the leak is too small, it won’t be detected, so we have to be the ears and the eyes of the pipeline,” Fuller said. “It’s odorless, it’s colorless. So I often find myself getting up at night and opening up the curtains and peering out to see if there’s a little vapor cloud out there anywhere. And if there was, I really wouldn’t have any idea what to do.”

She points out there is no early warning system, and believes any emergency or evacuation plan is not adequate.

The county council was right to intervene. The questions about Mariner East are not going away. It’s a huge concern for residents. It should be for public officials as well.