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ET Asks Judge to Dismiss Mich. Activist Lawsuit Against Rover Pipe
In late 2018 the final two segments of the already-operational Rover Pipeline went online, making the project 100% complete (see FERC OKs Final 2 Rover Pipeline Laterals – Now 100% Online). Rover is a 713-mile, 3.25 Bcf/d natural gas pipeline that transports domestically produced natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica production areas to markets across the United States as well as to the Union Gas Dawn Storage Hub in Ontario, Canada. Although completed and running for years, the pipeline still faces a few lingering lawsuits over its construction.
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The Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB), a special court set up to hear appeals of decisions by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), ruled on Wednesday that Sunoco Pipeline’s Mariner East 2 project does NOT have to reroute around Marsh Creek State Park in Chester County as ordered by the DEP. At least, not yet.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), the agency in charge of issuing permits for building the Mariner East pipeline projects, has just poked its head up to weigh in on another Energy Transfer project it issued permits to build: Revolution Pipeline. The PUC is proposing a $1 million penalty for “multiple violations” that led to an explosion of the pipeline as it entered service. The PUC also details a bunch of hoops ET must jump through in order to start service on the pipeline.
Energy Transfer’s (ET) Revolution Pipeline runs through Bulter, Beaver, Allegheny, and Washington counties in southwest PA. The 24-inch gathering pipeline shifted and exploded in September 2018, just as it was entering service (see 
Energy Transfer (ET) has had enough stonewalling from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) with regard to its Revolution Pipeline project. Last month the DEP told ET it could not restart the now-repaired Revolution until the DEP got good and ready to allow it, with no specific timeline offered (see 
Sunoco Pipeline is beginning construction work this week on some of the final bits of the Mariner East 2 pipeline project in Delaware County. One of the projects is to install the pipeline through the Glen Riddle Station Apartment complex. The owner and tenants are not happy. They should have known this day would come.
Mainstream media is spinning the story of a Cumberland County, PA man who doesn’t feel safe living 1,000 feet away from the Mariner East pipeline into a David and Goliath cliche. The man won a small victory from a left-leaning, Sunoco-hating administrative law judge last December (see 
Monday night the radical Sierra Club hosted a virtual town hall in which people could complain about the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project. And complain they did. The aim of the virtual complaint session is to try and close down the already up-and-running ME pipelines (plural), and most particularly prevent the final bit of ME2X from getting completed. By airing sob stories, the Clubbers are hoping to bully the state Dept. of Environmental Protection and/or the Governor into blocking further work on the project–a project just a few months from being done.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues to block Energy Transfer’s Revolution Pipeline gathering system in western PA from restarting. In September the DEP finally, after two years, gave ET permission to fix problems that caused the pipeline to explode. Even though ET has fixed the original site of the explosion, the DEP says there are other areas of concern and forbids certain sections of the pipeline from restarting, until…
Energy Transfer (ET), builder of the Rover pipeline project and the Mariner East pipelines here in the M-U region (as well as many other projects across the country), issued its third-quarter update yesterday. The company lost $782 million in 3Q20 versus making a profit of $857 million in 3Q19. Some (most) of the loss was a paper loss. As part of the update, we learned that the “next phase” of the Mariner East project will be placed into service by the end of this year.
The bad blood between Energy Transfer (ET) and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues. ET’s Sunoco Pipeline subsidiary is desperately trying to complete the Mariner East 2X pipeline from eastern Ohio through to Marcus Hook near Philadelphia. A recent drilling mud spill in Marsh Creek State Park prompted the DEP to demand Sunoco change the route for ME2X (which was less than 60 days from being done) to a new route around the State Park (see 
Energy Transfer (Sunoco Pipeline) is pushing back against a demand by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) that the company’s Mariner East 2X pipeline project be rerouted around Marsh Creek State Park (in Chester County, PA) following a drilling mud spill in August. Sunoco has asked the PA Environmental Hearing Board, a special court created to hear appeals of DEP decisions, to override the DEP’s demand to reroute ME2X.
Once again the Mariner East 2 pipeline project is up Snitz Creek…without a paddle? There have been a number of “inadvertent returns” or mud spills in Snitz Creek, place where drilling mud is used to grease a drill bit for drilling holes under the creek. Mud has popped up where it’s not supposed to. Some of the mud spills have been, literally, just a couple of gallons. NOTHING. A recent spill on Oct. 19 was for 200 gallons.
Anti-fossil fuelers are predictable and their motives transparent. A movement anti in Chester County (liberal, far-left Democrat) wanted to expose confidential safety information about the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline public. Specifically, he wanted to reveal “blast radius” information in hopes of inflaming opposition against the pipeline in his near-religious effort to get the pipeline permanently shut down. It’s a holy war for these people. Zealotry.