PA Fines Sunoco $355,636 for Old Mariner East 2 Pipe Violations

In early 2018 Sunoco Logistics Partners (aka Energy Transfer) agreed to pay a massive (historically high) $12.6 million fine to the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for “permit violations related to the construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline project” (see Sunoco LP Pays PA DEP $12.6M to Resume ME2 Pipeline Construction). It wasn’t the only fine the ME projects have incurred. Last Thursday Sunoco agreed to pay *another* $355,636 for a series of “inadvertent returns” (i.e. drilling mud spills) that happened more than a year ago, between August 2018 and April 2019.
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Last December both Rover Pipeline and NEXUS Pipeline, two large Utica-gas pipelines traversing Ohio, appealed their property tax valuations to the Ohio Dept. of Taxation, looking to trim their tax bills in Stark County by up to 50% (see
Two weeks ago while drilling in Chester County in Marsh Creek State Park, Energy Transfer’s Mariner East (ME) 2X pipeline experienced an “inadvertent return”–nontoxic drilling mud coming up out of the ground where it’s not supposed to (see
FirstEnergy Solutions (now called Energy Harbor) allegedly paid $60 million in bribes to (now former) Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his associates to gain their assistance in passing the hugely unpopular House Bill 6 (see
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, The Conservation Fund, and Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) yesterday issued a joint announcement that MVP is paying $19.5 million to the Conservancy to “conserve land along the Trail corridor and support outdoor recreation-based economies in Virginia and West Virginia.” It is the largest “funding package” in the Conservancy’s history to advance conservation efforts in a single geography.
“Hurry it up, will ya?” That was the upshot of a message sent by TC Energy to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with respect to giving final approval for its Louisiana XPress project. FERC granted the project a favorable environmental assessment (EA) on February 6 (see
Why is the Chester County, PA District Attorney hell-bent on persecuting (i.e. prosecuting) security guards who have done nothing more than protect nutty environmentalists from hurting themselves at Mariner East 2 pipeline construction sites? Former Chester County, PA District Attorney Tom Hogan (RINO), and his successor Deb Ryan (Democrat) were 100% humiliated after a Chester County Magisterial District Judge in June dismissed the entire case against the local head of security for Energy Transfer in what the DA’s office lyingly calls a “buy a badge scheme” (see
Nuverra Environmental Solutions (formerly Heckmann) is one of the largest companies in the United States that handles transportation and disposal of shale drilling wastewater and leftover rock and dirt from drilling. The company has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. In April the company laid off roughly 100 employees (see
Last week Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2X pipeline experienced an “inadvertent return”–nontoxic drilling mud coming up out of the ground where it’s not supposed to–in Chester County, PA (see
While drilling in Chester County earlier this week in the Marsh Creek State Park, Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2X pipeline experienced an “inadvertent return”–nontoxic drilling mud coming up out of the ground where it’s not supposed to (see 

Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company (ESNG), a subsidiary company of Chesapeake Utilities Corporation (a company
Democrat governors across the country are now mimicking the example set by the dictator of New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo abuses state power to reject fossil fuel projects (unconstitutional in our opinion), telling NY’s state environmental agency to reject all new pipelines. Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina, is the latest Cuomo wannabe. Cooper instructed his state’s environmental agency, the Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ), to reject permits for Equitrans’ proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) Southgate project. Which the DEQ did yesterday. The agency tried to disguise the rejection using lame excuses, but the reason for the rejection was politics, plain and simple.
Underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) for the Mariner East 2 pipelines (two of them, 2 and 2X) have a history of springing leaks. They’re called “inadvertent returns”–when you drill horizontally underground for a pipeline and the drilling mud you put down the hole pops up in a place it’s not supposed to. The good news is that the drilling mud is non-toxic, the same stuff used in toothpaste. The bad news is that it can overwhelm little fishies and other aquatic life and kill (suffocate) them. ME2X drilling had another such incident earlier this week–in Chester County, PA.