Sunoco Stops ME2 Drilling in Chester County Following Water Issue
The on-again, off-again, on-again construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline in Chester County, PA (near Philly)…is now off again. At least in West Whiteland Township. Sunoco Logistics Partners was using horizontal directional drilling (HDD) to install pipeline through an area where digging a trench would not work. The HDD work hit a water aquifer that feeds private water wells for homes in the area. Drilling mud used during the work leaked into the aquifer and resulted in cloudy water for some 15 households. MDN previously reported that Sunoco quickly addressed the issue and committed to paying for a municipal water line in the area (see Sunoco Extending Public Water to Homes Affected by ME2 Drilling). Last week Sunoco had resumed work in the area. But work is once again stopped, and will remain stopped “until further notice” according to local officials–until “the water situation is addressed.” We thought it had been addressed, but apparently not. Here’s the latest…
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Bit by bit, piece by piece, Shell is getting landowners in Beaver County, PA to sign easements for its 94-mile Falcon Ethane Pipeline–a pipeline with two “legs” that will feed Shell’s mighty ethane cracker plant. MDN exclusively broke the news in February 2016 that Shell had begun to sign leases with landowners for the pipeline (see
Just yesterday MDN reported on a small group of gentry landowners living in the lavish Bent Mountain area of Roanoke County, VA who illegally blocked access to surveyors from Mountain Valley Pipeline (see
A change-up in tactics for Maya van Rossum, THE Delaware Riverkeeper. Until now, Riverkeeper has mostly concentrated it’s efforts on big, federally regulated interstate pipeline projects, like the PennEast Pipeline (see
Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) sent a letter to Energy Transfer regarding the Rover Pipeline project. You may recall that Rover hit some bumps along the way in its aggressive schedule to get part of the pipeline up and running by the end of this month, and the rest operational by the end of November. In Ohio, Rover experienced a series of mishaps, the most serious of which spilled 2 million gallons of non-toxic drilling mud in a swamp near the Tuscarawas River back in April (see
Isn’t it interesting how a small-but-mouthy group of anti-fossil fuelers can drive a media narrative? Just two days ago MDN told you about a meeting of 100 (likely far less) anti-fossil fuel protesters in Dexter Township, Michigan, who rallied to protest the impending construction of the Rover Pipeline in that area (see 
West Goshen Township, in Philadelphia suburb of Chester County, has failed yet again to stop Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline in its community. Last March MDN told you about the desperate last stand taken by liberal anti-pipeliners in West Goshen (see
It’s so darned unusual, we felt we had to share the news that in the heart of liberal New England–about 48 miles from New York City–the town of New Canaan, Connecticut has voted to add natural gas service to a 4.7 mile area around town. That means installing (digging and drilling) pipelines to carry the gas. The gas will first be installed at three (three!) schools (gasp!!), a YMCA (oh no!), an eldercare center (the inhumanity), and even (say it ain’t so) gas for “some residents.” Yes dear reader, common sense has broken out in a small pocket of New England, and their local elected leaders, the Board of Selectmen, voted unanimously to bring low cost, clean-burning natural gas into the heart of their community. What will happen next? Perhaps no increase in local property taxes this year? Well, let’s not get crazy…
MDN previously reported about problems experienced last week in Chester County, PA (suburb of Philadelphia) with underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) by Sunoco Logistics Partners for its Mariner East 2 Pipeline project (see
Last March MDN told you about the desperate last stand taken by liberal anti-pipeliners in West Goshen Township, in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester County (see
We have a correction to a previous story. In June MDN brought you the news that the Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline, a $3.2 billion, 515-mile interstate natural gas pipeline in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, had been placed into service, flowing natural gas to Florida electric generating plants (see
In May, MDN noted a disturbing trend in the Commonwealth of Virginia of entangling law enforcement in the non-criminal issue of surveying for a federally-authorized pipeline project (see
The lack of a quorum (enough voting members) for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is has gone beyond amusing and angering–it’s now critical. Early in the new Trump presidency we noted the curious behavior of liberal Democrats, who are also virulent anti-drillers, in their hammering of Trump over lack of nominating people to FERC (see
Sounding eerily like a Borg drone from Star Trek (“YOU WILL COMPLY, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE”), the Ohio EPA (OEPA) has asked Ohio’s Attorney General, Mike DeWine, to force Rover to pay the Ohio EPA $914,000 in so-called fines it has unilaterally levied (with no apparent authority to do so) to punish Rover for a series of accidents while constructing the pipeline. Rover has not agreed to the fines and is challenging the OEPA’s authority to levy them. So the OEPA is asking DeWine to use the full weight and force of his office to force Rover to comply. Rover has had the pedal to the metal since receiving a go-ahead from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March to begin construction to build a 711-mile natural gas pipeline from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada (see