Join CCAN's Virtual Night of Action to STOP Manchin's Dirty Deal!

From the Appeal of Grace Tuttle, Protect Our Water—Heritage—Rights, December 7, 2022

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, released the full text of the Building American Energy Security Act of 2022. He also urged his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support amending the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to include this comprehensive, bipartisan permitting reform and complete the critical Mountain Valley Pipeline.

“Failing to pass the bipartisan, comprehensive energy permitting reform that our country desperately needs is not an acceptable option. As our energy security becomes more threatened every day, Americans are demanding Congress put politics aside and act on commonsense solutions to solve the issues facing us. The Senate must vote to amend the NDAA to ensure the comprehensive, bipartisan permitting reform our country desperately needs is included,” said Chairman Manchin.

To read the Building American Energy Security Act of 2022 in full, click here.

To read a summary of the changes, click here.

CCAN Event: RSVP:
https://act.chesapeakeclimate.org/page/46961/data/1

Description: Join CCAN’s Virtual Night of Action to STOP Manchin’s Dirty Deal!

It’s time. Our senators need to hear from us. We will not stand for Manchin’s dirty deal. We can’t make policy with backroom negotiations that exclude impacted communities. We can’t keep feeding our addiction to fossil fuels.

Our goal is to get 150 residents to email their senator in one night to stop the dirty deal.

6:00-6:15 Latest policy update, Q&A
6:15-6:30 Outreach to personal VA friends and family
6:30-7:00 Textbank with CCAN

>> Grace Tuttle, Development & Programs Coordinator
Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR)

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P.S. The members of the US Congress need to hear from you. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is trying to include his Dirty Deal – to roll back bedrock environmental protections and force the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline – in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We can only block this if enough Senators stand up and promise to vote against the NDAA if it includes the Dirty Deal.

Priority List:
Senator Kaine (202) 224-4024
Senator Warner (202) 224-2023
Senator Carper (202) 224-2441
Senator Schumer (202) 224-6542
Senator Schatz (202) 224-3934
Senator Murray (202) 224-2621
Senator Reed (202) 224-4642
Senator Leahy (202) 224-4242
Senator Warnock (202) 224-3643

The MVP is unnecessary and an insult to the environment and climate change

Letter to Editor from Jim Kotcon, Sierra Club of West Virginia, Morgantown Dominion Post, October 9, 2022

Hoppy Kercheval’s column (“Manchin’s Miscalculation,” Sept. 30) repeats claims from Sens. Manchin and Capito, who relied on industry propaganda calling for “permitting reform” and weakening the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

NEPA has, for over 50 years, required federal agencies to objectively analyze environmental impacts of proposed projects and to involve the public who will be affected by those agency decisions. This approach is both good science and good public policy. Rational decisions are best made with all the facts, and since agencies cannot be expected to know everything about the impacts of their proposals, getting input from those with expertise and interest just makes sense.

Unfortunately, this approach requires that agencies actually listen to people and consider their concerns. Agencies get into trouble when they try to rubber-stamp a decision already made, rather than objectively considering all the issues and reasonable alternatives.

The proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a classic example of this flawed approach. Courts tend to defer to agency expertise except when the agency is so arbitrary and capricious as to violate federal law. MVP keeps losing in court, not because environmentalists are obstructionists, but because it really is a bad idea — one that violates federal laws meant to protect all of us. The federal agencies that have pushed this have generated NEPA analyses that are so obviously flawed that courts have repeatedly asked that they be redone.

The claim that MVP is needed for domestic security and to supply Europe ignores climate change and the urgent need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. Investing billions in a project that will not be completed in time to help Ukraine, but that will be obsolete before it pays for itself, while imposing excessive environmental costs on our land and water, is exactly the kind of bad decision that NEPA is intended to prevent.

In a democracy, legitimate permitting reform would not need to rely on a bill that would arbitrarily mandate a single project and prohibit any appeal by citizens.

>>> Jim Kotcon, W.Va. Chapter of the Sierra Club, Morgantown

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See Also: Summary of the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. §4321 et seq. (1969)

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was one of the first laws ever written that establishes the broad national framework for protecting our environment. NEPA’s basic policy is to assure that all branches of government give proper consideration to the environment prior to undertaking any major federal action that significantly affects the environment.

NEPA requirements are invoked when airports, buildings, military complexes, highways, parkland purchases, and other federal activities are proposed. Environmental Assessments (EAs) and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs), which are assessments of the likelihood of impacts from alternative courses of action, are required from all Federal agencies and are the most visible NEPA requirements.

Residual Waste is toxic brine, as with the diesel truck exhaust gases

From an Article by Michael Barrick, Appalachian Chronicle, September 18, 2022
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WESTON, W.Va. – We read in Ecclesiastes that there is a season for everything, including a time to be silent and a time to speak. By now, I had hoped to be silent. As a pensioner, I was hoping to hang out with my family, do some hiking, and to travel a bit. In short, I’m just trying to live a peaceful life. The only problem is that corruption and violence are so rampant that they can’t be ignored.

Silence in the face of violence is compliance with it. (To hear a beautiful take on that notion, listen to “Medicine” by the Americana band Rising Appalachia). So my season of silence is over.

For nearly a decade, before I tried to step back a few months ago, I had written more than 100 articles about the public health, safety and environmental dangers of fracking and related pipeline development. I’ve also written about Mountaintop Removal and efforts by environmental activists to protect the pristine Appalachian Mountains. What West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and his fossil fuel cronies have inflicted upon the people and land of West Virginia and Virginia in attempting to build the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is nothing short of a violent assault upon the people and land.

In building the now-abandoned Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and the MVP, energy companies EQT, Duke Energy and Dominion and their subcontractors have been ruthless, as the articles below reveal. (Note: some links within articles may no longer be valid). This collective chronicle of the gas industry’s tactics reveal deceit, threats and destruction. The MVP remains uncompleted only because of the people in its path. A coalition of individuals and groups have stalled it primarily through successful legal and regulatory challenges, not to mention dogged determination.

These articles – the first published Aug. 4 2014 – demonstrate what a roller-coaster ride of emotions and betrayal landowners and environmentals have experienced. They succeeded in shutting down the ACP and had the MVP on the ropes. Investors were nervous.

However, it appeared that all of that work against the MVP may have been undone in a behind-closed-doors deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin to get Manchin’s essential vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act. That deal was supposed to streamline the permitting process for the MVP.

However, E&E News Energy Wire is reporting that may not be enough to salvage the beleaguered and long-delayed project. According to the article, a primary obstacle may be legislation announced and sponsored by West Virginia’s other Senator, Republican Shelley Moore Capito. The Republican proposal is picking up bi-partisan support. The E&E News article details how legal and regulatory challenges could still derail the MVP should the proposal pass, as it would not allow the MVP to bypass judicial review.

Though this is hopeful news, this fight is far from over. There is simply too much money changing hands. So, keep up with this story and support any effort to thwart the shady dealings of Schumer and Manchin.

These articles would not have been possible without the cooperation of my family and the subjects of the articles. They are the brave souls willing to share their stories, allowing me insight, facts and documents to support my enterprise and investigative reporting; additionally, contributions from other writers have served to enrich our reporting.

So, while it may take you a while, please read through our past articles. You will see that the fossil fuel industry hasn’t changed tactics in over a century. Only this time, instead of using Baldwin-Felt thugs to do their dirty work as they did during the West Virginia Mine Wars in the early 1920s, today’s energy executives hatch their plots on Manchin’s “Almost Heaven” yacht moored on the Potomac River.

The “Keystone Pipeline” won’t make gas any cheaper

From an Essay by Ted Williams, Writers on the Range, July 17, 2022

The Keystone Pipeline is fully operational, daily delivering 590,000 barrels of tar-sands oil from Canada to U.S. refineries.

Most of the criticism comes from people who recycle truthiness. Former vice president Mike Pence: “Gas prices have risen across the country because of this administration’s war on energy — shutting down the Keystone Pipeline.” Republican Rep. Jim Jordan: “Biden shut off the Keystone Pipeline.”

Here’s what really happened: No one shut down, canceled, or shut off the Keystone Pipeline. It is fully operational, daily delivering 590,000 barrels of tar-sands oil in Canada to U.S. refineries.

What some pipeline advocates think is the “Keystone Pipeline” is a 1,700-mile “shortcut” called Keystone XL, or KXL. It would have sliced through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma to the Texas Gulf Coast, delivering 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day. Many residents of those states fought fiercely against the pipeline cutting through their land.

Now, “Build the Keystone Pipeline” has become a social-media mantra, as if the United States could so decree. It is the Canadian firm, TC Energy, formerly TransCanada, that officially terminated the project once President Biden withdrew its permits.

Even if construction on the pipeline began tomorrow, KXL could not be up and running in less than five years. The KXL pipeline was a project developed by a foreign company that would have delivered foreign oil products to mostly foreign markets.

When President Trump re-permitted KXL in 2017, his own State Department reported that it would not lower gasoline prices. The price of oil is set by the global market and certainly not by U.S. presidents. What’s more, the project was just about dead for a number of reasons, including litigation from aggrieved property owners whose land TC Energy seized by eminent domain.

We should also remember that rendering gasoline from tar-sands oil, the planet’s dirtiest petroleum, is far more polluting and energy-intensive than conventional refining. Some carbon content is burned off in a process that belches greenhouse gases and generates toxic waste called petcoke, which is dumped around the United States in piles six stories high. Petcoke billows through neighborhoods and infiltrates schools and houses even when windows are shut.

Bitumen, basically asphalt, continues to be strip-mined from what used to be Canada’s boreal forests in Alberta. Too thick to be piped, it’s spiked with volatile liquid condensate from natural gas and thus converted to a toxic tar-sands cocktail called ”dilbit,” short for diluted bitumen.

Dilbit, sent through the existing Keystone pipeline, contains chloride salts, sulfur, abrasive minerals and acids, and must be pumped under high pressure. It’s murder on pipes.

In addition to greenhouse gases and petcoke, tar-sands waste products end up in lakes, rivers, fish, wildlife and people. Between 1995 and 2006, when tar-sands extraction was accelerating, Alberta’s First Nations suffered a sudden 30 percent increase in cancer rates.

KXL, if built, also threatened the world’s largest aquifer — the Ogallala. Anyone who thinks Nebraska lacks water should visit Green Valley Township, where I encountered Ogallala water so close to the surface it flowed along dirt roads and ditches. Pintails, mallards, and widgeon billowed out of them. But parts of the aquifer are now depleted, and a major dilbit spill could finish those parts off.

In 2011 a pipeline representative named Shawn Howard assured me that ramming a dilbit pipe through the Ogallala aquifer would be risk free. “Why,” he demanded, “would we invest $13 billion in a pipeline and put a product in it that was going to destroy it like these activists are trotting out? It makes absolutely no business sense.”

The existing Keystone pipeline has ruptured 22 times, including spills in 2017 and 2019 that fouled land and water with 404,000 gallons of dilbit. Business sense, as the oil industry consistently reminds us, is an attribute more often desired than possessed.

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NOTE ~~ Writers on the Range, Essays from the Mountain West

Writers on the Range provides editorial essays to Western newspapers in the intermountain west. Our topics include public lands, outdoor recreation, water and economic institutions serving the west. Our writers are westerners from 10 states with diverse opinions and insight. As a 501c3 corporation as defined and approved by the IRS, donations to Writers on the Range are tax deductible.

Gas pipeline welder at Hastings, WV (Wetzel County)

Donald Watts was born January 1, 1929 in Mannington, WV son of the late Rev. Glenn D. and Minnie J. (Thomas) Watts.

He was a retired welder for C.N.G. Transmission in Hastings, WV, a member of New Martinsville United Methodist Church and a member of Wetzel Lodge #39 A.F.&A.M. He was a loving father and pap and always there to lend a helping hand to neighbors and friends.

In addition to his parents he was preceded in death by three brothers, Dale, George “Buck” and Robert Watts; infant sister, Betty Jane Watts and son-in-law, Kenneth “Bill” Fisher.

Surviving are his high school sweetheart and beloved wife of seventy-three years, Erma O. (Barr) Watts; two daughters, Donna (Robert) Jones of Paden City, WV and Brenda (Steve) Rector of New Martinsville, WV; four grandchildren, Marsha (Joseph) Craycraft of Wheeling, WV, Kenneth (Lori) Fisher of Asheville, NC, Brian Jones of Paden City, WV and Angela (Jordan) Swanberg of Paden City, WV; eight great-grandchildren, Nathan, Kelsey and Lola Fisher, Emma and Sarah Craycraft and Josiah, Autumn and Aspen Swanberg and several nieces, nephews and cousins.

Friends received 4-7 p.m., Thursday, February 10, 2022 at the Jarvis-Williams Funeral Home, 1224 S Bridge St., New Martinsville. Funeral service 1 p.m., Friday, February 11, 2022 at the New Martinsville United Methodist Church with son-in-law, Pastor Steven Rector officiating. Burial to follow in Paden Memorial Gardens in Paden City, WV.

Memorial contributions may be made to New Martinsville United Methodist Church, 10 Howard Jeffers Dr., New Martinsville, WV 26155. Family is requesting everyone to wear a mask.

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Dominion to work on Hastings natural gas plant in late September of 2013

From the Reuters News Staff, August 13, 2013

NEW YORK, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Dominion Transmission Inc, a unit of Dominion Resources Inc, on Tuesday said it would take the Hastings natural gas extraction plant in West Virginia out of service for planned maintenance from Sept. 30 through Oct. 3.

In a website posting, the company said all gathering system production and direct taps feeding into its system flowing to Hastings would be shut-in for the work.

Gathering production feeding the Lightburn and Schultz extraction plants, also in West Virginia, may not be shut-in if such production can continue to flow without constraints, the posting said.

Dominion Transmission said it would monitor field pressures in order to preserve system integrity and may need to adjust flows to each plant during the outage.

The Hastings extraction/fractionation plant is located near Pine Grove, West Virginia. It produces and supplies natural gas liquids including propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline, according to the company’s website.

Kathy Chandler protests MVP in 2017

From an Article by Laurence Hammack, Roanoke Times, May 16, 2021

When a company building the Mountain Valley Pipeline first selected a route, cutting directly through James and Kathy Chandler’s “slice of heaven” atop Bent Mountain, it offered them $89,343.

A jury on Friday ordered Mountain Valley to pay the Chandlers $430,000. After hearing four days of testimony, the jury settled on the figure as “just compensation” for an 8.6-acre easement the company took in 2018, using its power of eminent domain to force a sale when the owners resisted.

Currently under construction, the 42-inch diameter natural gas pipeline bisects the Chandlers’ 111-acre property, passing about 500 feet from their custom-built home.

“There’s a huge gap that cuts through the heart of their land, 125 feet wide and half a mile long,” Stephen Clarke, the Chandlers’ attorney, said during the first trial to decide just compensation for the owners of one of nearly 300 parcels condemned by Mountain Valley.

The Chandlers testified about how they had long searched for the perfect place to build their dream home. In 1997, they found a remote spot on Bent Mountain, with forests and pastures along Mill Creek, that became their “slice of heaven,” James Chandler testified.

When plans for the pipeline were announced in 2014, the Chandlers knew their land would be forever changed. Even after it is buried, the pipeline will occupy a cleared right of way through a forest that Kathy Chandler once called her yard. “The pipe will always be there,” James Chandler told the jury. “It will always be a visual reminder. Nothing will be normal.”

After Mountain Valley decided to build a pipeline that will pass through the New River and Roanoke valleys on a 303-mile path from northern West Virginia to Pittsylvania County, the joint venture of five energy companies began to buy the land it needed. About 85% of the landowners struck voluntary agreements, the company has said.

In October 2017 — about two weeks after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found there was a public need for the natural gas that will be pumped through the pipeline at high pressure — Mountain Valley sued the owners of about 300 parcels in Virginia who had refused to sell.

Under the Natural Gas Act, the company was allowed to use the power of eminent domain, which originally was used by governmental agencies for public projects such as highways or schools.

U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon granted Mountain Valley immediate possession of the land, allowing it to begin cutting trees in early 2018 while the property owners waited to be paid.

Since then, most of the cases have been settled, either through voluntary agreements or after a judge’s ruling on evidentiary issues forced a resolution. About a dozen cases remain pending.

Mountain Valley often makes lowball offers while using its eminent domain authority as leverage over landowners, according to Mark Jarrell of Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights, an anti-pipeline coalition. Jarrell, who is from West Virginia, owns land that has been taken by Mountain Valley.

“Regardless of how great or small a verdict may be, the forced easement is a loss, a gut punch for landowners — like being taken to the gallows,” Jarrell said in a statement following the trial. “This is a no win, they’ve lost their privacy, peace of mind, their sense of safety and security, and they have a potential 42-inch pipe bomb in their back yard.”

The Chandlers’ trial featured a mostly empty courtroom, rearranged to accommodate for pandemic social distancing, and the numbers-laden testimony of appraisers to determine a fair-market value of their loss.

Joseph Thompson, a Roanoke appraiser hired by Mountain Valley, put the value of the land and home at about $1 million. The pipeline would diminish that by 15%, he told the jury, arriving at a just compensation amount of nearly $170,000, which included temporary easements.

Virginia Beach appraiser Dennis Gruelle offered a much different picture when called by the Chandlers. By Gruelle’s calculations, the property was worth about $1.6 million, which was reduced 40% by the pipeline’s presence.

That meant Mountain Valley owed the Chandlers $665,391, Clarke argued. After deliberating for a little more than an hour, the jury returned with a verdict of $430,000 — roughly in the middle of the two requests.

The jury was not told how much Mountain Valley had offered to pay for the land, or the outcome of any negotiations. After the trial, Clarke said the $89,343 offer from Mountain Valley was made before the eminent domain suit was filed in 2017.

Although Mountain Valley’s right to take private land for its own profit was not a question for the jury, pipeline opponents hope trials like the Chandlers’ will draw more attention to the subject.

“Our constitutional girders rest upon private property ownership,” Jarrell said. He urged legislators to make changes to a law that allows property to be “literally stripped and quartered at the whim of a private gas company.”

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See also: DEQ denies MVP Southgate water quality permit — again, Lisa Sorg, Progressive Pulse, April 29, 2021

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has again denied a key water quality permit for the proposed MVP Southgate natural gas pipeline, dealing another setback to the controversial project that would run through Rockingham and Alamance counties.

DEQ originally denied the water quality permit application last August. At the time Division of Water Resources Director Danny Smith wrote that because of “uncertainty surrounding the completion of the MVP Mainline project … work on the Southgate extension could lead to unnecessary water quality impacts and disturbance of the environment in North Carolina.”

MVP appealed the DEQ’s denial to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. But last month, appeals court judges determined that DEQ’s decision to deny the permit was consistent with state and federal law. The agency also adequately explained its concerns about the viability of Southgate in the context of the delayed mainline project. But where DEQ erred, the court said, is that it failed to fully explain why it chose to deny the permit outright rather than granting a conditional one, contingent on the successful construction of the main line.

Today’s denial corrects that error and explains the agency’s reasoning, DEQ said.

MVP impacts to mountains, rivers and streams are excessive

From a Summary by Lewis Freeman, Allegheny Blue Ridge Alliance, March 8, 2021

A report released March 8 by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes that the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 300-mile pipeline that would move natural gas from the Appalachian Basin to markets in the eastern and southern U.S., is in financial jeopardy because of reduced demand projections and legal challenges.

The IEEFA report found four primary reasons to be skeptical of the pipeline’s financial viability:

● Revised forecasts now predict lower natural gas demand than when the project was first proposed. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts gas demand will fall at least through 2030 in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic.

● The likely cancellation of the Southgate Extension, a spur meant to funnel gas from the Mountain Valley project to North Carolina, weakens the financial case for the pipeline. Public Service Company of North Carolina has signed up for 12.5 percent of the Mountain Valley capacity. But if a North Carolina permit denial is upheld in federal court, the extension can’t be built—and the utility can’t use the gas.

● Gas produced in the Appalachian Basin and shipped through the Mountain Valley Pipeline to an interstate connection known as the Transco Pipeline must now compete with cheaper sources of natural gas. Prospects for saving money with gas shipped through the Mountain Valley Pipeline are already on shaky ground; the construction costs of the project have soared 60 percent beyond original estimates, to roughly $6 billion.

● Liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to Asia and the Pacific may not offset declining domestic demand. Asian LNG demand is predicted to be lower than originally anticipated; lower-cost producers such as Qatar could undercut Appalachian gas; new U.S. LNG export terminals face financing challenges; and any new terminals also are likely to look for less-expensive alternatives to Appalachian Basin gas.

The report notes that the MVP was approved under a 21-year-old Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) policy that bases decisions entirely on the existence of commercial contracts to purchase gas, rather than the actual need for new sources of gas.

A copy of the full report is available for your reading.

>>> ​Lewis Freeman, Executive Director, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance
https://www.abralliance.org/

Eastern shore, the Delmarva Peninsula, east of Chesapeake Bay, is 180 miles of flat farmland

From an Article by Diane Bernard, Maryland Public News Service, July 10, 2020

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Environmental groups and local residents are speaking out against a proposed fracked-gas pipeline to run through rivers, farms and forests from Delaware to Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The Hogan administration held a public hearing about Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company’s plan to build more than 20 miles of pipeline to bring fracked gas to the historically black University of Maryland Eastern Shore campus and the rest of Somerset County.

Anthony Field, Maryland campaign coordinator for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, says with the recent setbacks for both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Dakota Access pipeline, the project is out of step with the public’s desire to move away from fossil fuels.

“The era of fossil fuels is over,” says Field. “We simply cannot be building new infrastructure for toxic methane gas. Eastern Shore officials should promote the speedy development of clean energy sources like offshore wind instead.”

Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company officials say the pipeline is needed in the area to meet growing market demand. They point out it also would bring gas service to Somerset County, one of only three counties in Maryland without access to natural gas.

But Field says the public must weigh any support for a fossil-fuel energy source with the pipeline’s potential threat to the area’s ecosystems, particularly water supplies. And he notes that once the pipeline is up and running, its emissions would boost greenhouse gases – ultimately affecting air quality in a low-income area already challenged by climate change.

“This is extremely concerning,” says Field. “Especially UMES, for example, is an HBCU, and largely disenfranchised folks – people of color, lower-income individuals – are mostly the ones affected by the changing climate, and the issues that these kind of infrastructure bring to the state and the country.”

Field says his group and others will continue protesting the pipeline. In the meantime, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan plans to spend more than $100 million to increase fracked-gas pipelines and infrastructure in the state.

Work underway in Marsh Creek State Park

From an Article by Joe Brandt, NBC News (Philadelphia), September 11, 2020

More than 8,100 gallons of drilling fluid spilled into Marsh Creek Lake, Chester County, PA, in August of this year.

An natural gas liquids pipeline under construction in Pennsylvania will be rerouted after thousands of gallons of industrial waste spilled into a creek last month.

The PA state Department of Environmental Protection ordered Sunoco to reroute the Mariner East II pipeline and divert it around the Marsh Creek Lake and wetlands, a PA-DEP news release says.

In August, more than 8,100 gallons of drilling fluid spilled into a tributary of the lake before flowing into the lake itself. Some 33 acres of the lake were closed off from boating and other recreational uses after the spill.

Sunoco has proposed adjusting the pipeline route so it would cross under the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Conestoga Road.

Secretary Patrick McDonnell of the PA-DEP called the spill “yet another instance where Sunoco has blatantly disregarded the citizens and resources of Chester County with careless actions while installing the Mariner East II Pipeline.”

“We will not stand for more of the same,” McDonnell added in the news statement. “An alternate route must be used. The department is holding Sunoco responsible for its unlawful actions and demanding a proper cleanup.”

The department says Sunoco hasn’t turned over plans on how it will remediate the impacts of drilling fluid spills and sinkholes. The company told the state that spills are “readily contained and cleaned up with minimal affect to natural resources.”

Cleanup is still underway with state supervision.

The pipeline runs through Chester and Delaware counties and feeds into the Marcus Hook refinery. Drilling in the booming Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale fields – and shipping natural gas liquids through Mariner East pipelines and Marcus Hook – have helped the U.S. become the world’s leading ethane exporter, the Associated Press reported in 2019.

Marsh Creek State Park is one the most visited state parks and the lake is a key habitat for migrating birds, according to a state document on the pipeline.

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1975 TANKER COLLISION RESULTED IN EXPLOSIONS & FIRE —

NOTE: Some “25 Reported Missing and 2 Dead In Pennsylvania Tanker Wreck,” Multiple Explosions & Fire at Marcus Hook — The New York Times, February 1, 1975

Photo from West Whiteland Residents for Pipeline Safety

From an Article by Frank Kummer, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 11, 2020

Drilling fluid used in Sunoco Pipeline LP’s Mariner East project in Chester County leaked into Marsh Creek Lake in a state park of the same name on Monday — one of three incidents in recent days along the pipeline construction project route.

Virginia Cain, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said the agency is investigating the three incidents, which occurred at two project sites, in West Whiteland and Upper Uwchlan Townships.

The PA-DEP said the first leak occurred on the 100 block of Shoen Road in West Whiteland on Saturday. Both the PD-DEP and the Fish and Boat Commission responded and tested water to see if it contained drilling fluids. Drilling was stopped to await an analysis of the liquid.

If the liquid is found to be that used for drilling, which typically contains bentonite clay and water, the site will be shut down until an application to restart is filed. Usually, the liquid is injected into a bore during the horizontal drilling process. The mixture is not normally hazardous, though environmental groups say it could contain other chemicals.

On Sunday, the same agencies were called after discharges related to the same site were reported “at multiple areas in the West Whiteland Apartment Complex.” The PA-DEP is reviewing permits and plans Sunoco filed pertaining to the location to see if regulations were followed.

Then, on Monday, the PA-DEP was called to another drill site off Green Valley Road in Marsh Creek State Park in Upper Uwchlan. There, drilling fluid leaked into wetlands and a tributary to Marsh Creek Lake, then finally into the lake. Sunoco is working on a cleanup in coordination with the two state agencies.

Environmental groups and residents who have been battling the pipeline for years were outraged. When complete, the pipeline will transport gas liquids, such as propane, ethane, and butane.

The Clean Air Council estimated that 1,000 gallons of the drilling fluid were released into Marsh Creek Lake, which also serves as a drinking water reservoir. The nonprofit environmental organization said the fluid contains chemical additives and can “smother aquatic life.” The group said photographs show “a large plume of gray water snaking hundreds of feet into the lake.”

The potential impact on the overall health of the lake was not immediately clear as of Tuesday. Environmental groups in the past have urged the PA-DEP to prevent Sunoco from drilling near the park because of the risk of spills. “Sunoco again has failed to take seriously the danger its construction poses to drinking water supplies and other water resources,” the Clean Air Council said in a statement.

Alex Bomstein, an attorney at Clean Air Council, said a Sunoco geologist had included in a previous report before drilling began that there was a “moderate to high risk of a spill” in the area.

West Whiteland Residents for Pipeline Safety, a citizens group, posted a picture of muddied water and what it identified as Sunoco workers at the scene.

Ginny Kerslake, a member of the West Whiteland group, said she was at the lake Monday night and again Tuesday. “I have seen it firsthand,” she said of the spill. “Like many people, we frequently enjoy that lake. It’s devastating this has been allowed to happen.”

Marsh Creek State Park is in north-central Chester County. The 1,784-acre park contains the 535-acre Marsh Creek Lake, widely used for fishing and boating.

The pipeline has caused a number of incidents over the years. In July, inspectors found a new series of sinkholes that have opened up along the pipeline’s route in Chester County after cracks were reported in the pavement of Business Route 30 in Exton.

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See also: Paddle protest at Marsh Creek Lake calls for Mariner East shutdown, Susan Phillips, StateImpact Pennsylvania, August 11, 2020

As cleanup crews worked to remove thousands of gallons of drilling mud from a Chester County lake on Wednesday, residents gathered to protest the Mariner East pipeline project, citing a litany of environmental damage.

Construction on the line caused about 8,000 gallons of drilling mud to seep into a stream that feeds the lake, which is popular for boating, fishing and birding.

Following a rally on the banks of the 530-acre Marsh Creek Lake, several dozen protesters paddled out to the site of a plume of muddy water caused by nearby horizontal directional drilling (HDD). HDD uses bentonite clay, often referred to as drilling mud, to lubricate a large drill bit that bores beneath the surface, making way for the 20-inch pipe. The project, which is mostly complete, includes three separate pipes that carry natural gas liquids from the shale fields of western Pennsylvania to an export terminal in Delaware County.

Construction of the line has hit several snags in Chester County, where the karst, or limestone geology, creates difficulties for large-scale industrial projects that use underground drilling.