An aerial view of Mariner East 2 construction in rural Pennsylvania. Construction of the pipeline has resulted in dozens of incidents where drilling mud was released into surface water and groundwater aquifers.
Construction of Sunoco Pipeline’s $3 billion 350-mile long Mariner East 2 pipeline resulted in at least 61 drilling mud spills from April 25 through June 17, 2017, according to newly released documents. The spills have occurred in ten of the 12 counties along the route and range from minor releases of five gallons to larger more serious releases of tens of thousands of gallons. The documents include reports of “inadvertent returns,” and were released by the Department of Environmental Protection as part of ongoing litigation by the Clean Air Council challenging the department’s issuing of water crossing permits for the project last February.
The Council wants the Environmental Hearing Board to suspend construction while its case is pending review, but has so far been unsuccessful.
The spills primarily contain bentonite, a muddy clay substance used as a lubricant in drilling beneath waterways during horizontal directional drilling. Bentonite is non-toxic but can do damage to drinking water wells by clogging up an aquifer. A recent incident in Chester County forced 15 families to switch to bottled water and the company has since agreed to pay to hook residents up to the public water supply after some resident’s water wells went dry, and others experienced cloudy water.
If a large amount of the clay enters streams and wetlands, it can impact aquatic life. The drilling mud has entered trout streams, Exceptional Value wetlands, ponds, groundwater aquifers and uplands.
One of the most recent drilling mud spills occurred in Middletown, Delaware County on Monday, where 1500 gallons of bentonite spilled into a tributary of Chester Creek. On Tuesday, groundwater began flowing back through the same drill hole, an indication that the aquifer was impacted. Sunoco says no private water wells have been impacted. It was the fourth known spill in Delaware County since construction began back in February.
State Representative Leanne Krueger-Braneky, D-168 of Delaware County, called the number of incidents “shocking.”
“This is a construction project that’s going across the Commonwealth,” Krueger-Braneky told StateImpact. “Construction will continue for months and months and months, and seeing this many spills and these many problems so early on, gives me grave concern for the safety of the residents that I represent in Delaware County.”
Krueger-Braneky sent letters to both DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell and Gov. Tom Wolf asking them to halt construction on the Mariner East 2 line. Krueger-Braneky’s request follows similar pleas from other suburban Philadelphia representatives including Chester County democratic State Senator Andrew Dinniman, and State Rep. Chris Quinn, R-168 of Delaware County.
“What is occurring here is unacceptable,” Quinn told the Daily Local News earlier this week. “I am asking the governor and DEP secretary to come down here with Sunoco contractors and tour the incident sites where these breeches have occurred.”
Until release of the documents, the only incidents publicly reported occurred in Chester and Delaware counties. Previous attempts by StateImpact to gain information from DEP on spills in other parts of the state were rebuffed by the agency, which cited the pending litigation.
Attempts to reach DEP officials about the documents were unsuccessful.
State Impact Pennsylvania – Susan Phillips – 07/19/2017
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