Residents take fight against Sunoco to court
Residents along Gretna Road in Mt. Pleasant and Chartiers townships are fighting back after Sunoco Pipeline LP of Pennsylvania filed eminent domain documents in Washington County Court earlier this month.
Sunoco is seeking temporary and permanent rights of way on the land of property owners in several townships to move natural gas products through its Mariner East II project. During the first week of June, Sunoco filed for eminent domain on several properties in Mt. Pleasant and Independence townships, and four properties along Gretna Road owned by Joseph Jones, Michael and Kami Autry, Terry and Donna Fazzoiart and Joanne Easterday.
In four separate lawsuits filed Wednesday in Washington County Court, the Gretna Road landowners filed suit against Sunoco alleging that it is failing to follow state and federal laws.
“We have several arguments,” said Victoria Easterday-Wendorf, a research lawyer who is assisting with the case and the daughter of Easterday. “These people living along Gretna Road, they aren’t needed for intrastate transport.”
Easterday-Wendorf said Sunoco misrepresents itself, depending on its audience.
“They are clearly an interstate pipeline, or a pipeline that is being constructed through several states,” she said. “But they contradict themselves because they represent themselves as an intrastate pipeline, or a pipeline constructed in a single state, in other court cases.”
Sunoco Pipeline asserted that since 2002, it has been regulated by the state Public Utility Commission as a public utility, a status it said the PUC reaffirmed both last year and this year. But Easterday-Wendorf said the company should be following guidelines set forth by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission because the pipeline operates within several states.
It would be easier for Sunoco to use eminent domain as a public utility.
Easterday-Wendorf said her mother’s and neighbors’ property is the “link to the Ohio/Utica Pipeline and the Mariner East II pipeline.”
“(Sunoco) needs this property to connect to Utica,” she said. “It’s not needed for the intrastate pipeline.”
Sunoco is spending a total of $600 million for its east and west pipeline projects. With the exception of some of the valves, the Mariner East 2 pipeline will be routed below ground, with most of it paralleling the right of way of the Mariner East 1 pipeline.
Easterday-Wendorf would not discuss whether the landowners were seeking damages. Michigan attorney Leon Schmelzer, who is representing the Gretna Road landowners, deferred comment to Easterday-Wendorf. Jeff Shields, communication manager for Sunoco Logistics, declined to comment on pending litigation.
Easterday-Wendorf said she believes the landowners could be successful with their claims. They have requested a jury trial.
“They want the opportunity to negotiate fairly,” she said. “They don’t want the ‘take it or be sued’ basis. They work hard for their money and their land.”