Environmental groups challenge consent order between Sunoco and DEP
Environmental groups are accusing state regulators and Sunoco of breaching an agreement aimed at preventing hazards from construction work on the company’s more than 300-mile Mariner East 2 pipeline project.
Clean Air Council, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Mountain Watershed Association Inc. are challenging a consent order and agreement reached last month between the state Department of Environmental Protection and Sunoco, when the agency allowed construction to resume after it halted most work on the project about five weeks earlier.
On Wednesday, the groups filed an appeal with the state Environmental Hearing Board, plus a breach-of-contract complaint and request for a preliminary injunction in Commonwealth Court.
The environmentalist activists’ arguments in those filings center on a settlement they had reached in August with Sunoco and DEP.
That agreement included additional protocols DEP and Sunoco would follow during spills resulting from horizontal directional drilling, or HDD, along the pipeline’s path. HDD had allegedly caused much of the damage to private water supplies reported during construction.
The August settlement allowed Sunoco to resume drilling after the Environmental Hearing Board halted HDD activities in late July in response to a petition from the groups.
But the groups claim a consent order and agreement DEP and Sunoco entered six months later unraveled terms of the previous settlement.
In early January, DEP halted construction on Mariner East 2, citing “egregious and willful violations” of the law and the company’s permits. The agency’s order also listed spills of non-toxic bentonite used in drilling, including at a site in Union Township.
“If DEP wants Sunoco to go ahead everywhere, they should simply follow the protocols that we all agreed to in August,” said Alex Bomstein, senior litigation attorney with Clean Air Council. “That’s the easiest route, and the route they should have followed all along.”
He added Sunoco and DEP entered the February agreement without taking any input from the groups, as far as he could tell, and called it an example of “what happens when DEP doesn’t include the public in the process of hashing out an agreement with Sunoco.”
DEP spokesman Neil Shader said the agency doesn’t comment on litigation.
An emailed statement from Energy Transfer Partners, which merged with Sunoco last year, didn’t directly address the allegations lodged by the environmental groups.
“Protecting our communities, workers and the environment take precedent during construction, and we will continue our focus on these areas in strict compliance with our permits,” the statement read, in part.
The Commonwealth Court complaint also alleges DEP and Sunoco “have failed to follow these protocols, particularly the one for restarting drilling at sites where there has been a spill … of drilling fluid 50 gallons or more, an unknown quantity, or a repeat spill.”
On at least several occasions, the complaint adds, DEP allowed Sunoco to continue drilling without inspecting the site and determining “further drilling will not result in additional (spills) of 50 gallons or greater,” as required by the plan.
The groups ask the appellate court for an injunction restoring provisions of the August agreement, “and preventing further drilling at sites currently in violation of these protocols until and unless the protocols are followed.”