WEST CHESTER >> State Sen. Andy Dinniman said Wednesday that he would appeal the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP’s) denial of his Right-to-Know Request to obtain a list of private groundwater wells located near the path of Sunoco Pipeline’s Mariner East 2 project in Chester County.
Dinniman filed the request with the DEP’s Open Records Officer on Sept. 5 and has never received a response, meaning it was denied. He filed an appeal Wednesday directly with Erik Arneson, executive director of the Pennsylvania Department of Open Records. A decision on that appeal is expected within 15 business days.
“While DEP continues to drag its feet on releasing what amounts to public information anyway, residents and homeowners in Chester County and throughout the commonwealth continue to have their health, water, and property rights potentially threatened by this and other pipeline drilling projects,” Dinniman said. “The bottom line is I have an obligation to protect and stand up for my constituents and I will continue to do so, especially if DEP won’t and regardless of whether we have a Democrat or Republican administration.”
The request, filed with the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records and the DEP, called for the department to provide its “list of private groundwater wells in Chester County identified by Sunoco Pipeline L.P. within 450 feet of all horizontal directional drilling alignments, including parcels that would be adjacent to, but not directly crossed by the Pennsylvania Pipeline Project and referenced in the revised Water Supply Assessment, Preparedness, Prevention and Contingency Plan.”
Dinniman, who serves on the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, said he needs to access that information to ensure that DEP is doing its due diligence in properly ensuring that residents located near and potentially impacted by the pipeline route are notified, as required under the revised water permit. He added that after multiple residential wells in Chester County were directly and irreparably impacted by Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 drilling in mid-June, several residents indicated that they had never been notified that the drilling was even taking place.
Daily Local News – Staff Report – 09.16.2017
Posted by Nelson Bailey
0 Comments