There is no doubt Sunoco Logistics Partners has been pushing a boulder up a hill when it comes to the Mariner East 2 pipeline project–a $2.5 billion, 350-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia, carting ethane, butane and propane to the facility from both the Utica and Marcellus region. For over a year the project was mired in legal challenges of whether or not it can claim public utility status, with a right to use eminent domain. In July, PA’s Commonwealth Court ruled it is a public utility with a right to use eminent domain (see Sunoco LP Wins Major Court Decision for Mariner East 2 Pipeline). But the fight continues–town by town. Nowhere is that more evident than Middletown Township in Delaware County, PA. Monday night the town council voted, unanimously, to put an ordinance on the docket for council members to vote on at the Sept. 26 meeting, an ordinance that if passed, will allow Sunoco LP to move forward with building the pipeline on public land in the town–in one case across a park, and in another close to an elementary school…
There is no doubt Sunoco Logistics Partners has been pushing a boulder up a hill when it comes to the Mariner East 2 pipeline project–a $2.5 billion, 350-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia, carting ethane, butane and propane to the facility from both the Utica and Marcellus region. For over a year the project was mired in legal challenges of whether or not it can claim public utility status, with a right to use eminent domain. In July, PA’s Commonwealth Court ruled it is a public utility with a right to use eminent domain (see 