Letter: Pipeline project needs strong state oversight

Tuesday March 27, 2018

Harrisburg leaders not living up to promises.

Editor:
Gov. Tom Wolf's spokesman told StateImpact PA, "The administration remains committed to the protection of Pennsylvania's communities. DEP will continue its unprecedented oversight of this project and issue enforcement actions whenever necessary." Wolf's office was responding to a pipeline safety hearing in Harrisburg that focused almost exclusively on Sunoco/Energy Transfer Partners' problematic Mariner East pipelines.

Is this the "unprecedented oversight" he was talking about? "Pennsylvania environmental regulators were aware for days that collapsed soil along the path of the Mariner East pipeline construction project had exposed a parallel pipeline in Chester County this month before they informed safety regulators at another agency, according to testimony at a state Senate hearing," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Berks County has not been immune to the problems on both the 85-year-old Mariner East 1 line and the Mariner East 2 that has caused sinkholes and more than 106 drilling mud spills in less than a year. Given that the DTE pipeline, the other new pipeline affecting Berks County, was approved without regulators taking into account the contamination on the site or informing the public of the site's condition, it appears we're in for that same "unprecedented oversight" Wolf's spokesman referenced without a hint of irony.

Karen Feridun
Kutztown
Editor's note: Feridun is founder of Berks Gas Truth.

Pipeline project needs strong state oversight