Tag Archives: Uwchlan Safety Coaition

not our pipeline: will adelphia gateway llc be mariner east-lite?

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State Sen. Andy Dinniman. Photo from Sunday 2/18/2018 courtesy of Del-Chesco United for Pipeline Safety’s Facebook Page

About a month ago, I wrote a post about how I feel about the pipelines tearing up Chester County. The post was titled not our pipeline.

I am thinking not our pipeline needs to be a blog category.

Why?

Chester County is under siege from gas pipelines and Sunoco Logistics/Mariner East has proven these companies don’t care about anything other than their profits, etcetera right?

And how can we say the companies are safe?  Given the sinkholes, polluted wells, explosion fears and more?

Del-Chesco United for Pipeline Safety photo

In 2017 Chester County had a multitude of polluted wells, sinkholes, and other issues from pipeline projects.  They all do that horizontal or slanted drilling and it’s being done next to firehouses, schools, too close to homes, correct?  How is this all allowed again?

I am a cancer survivor. I am terrified of polluted wells.  I am terrified of pipelines.  They destroy our properties, have serious potential to lessen our property values, and here in Chester County we have a lot of limestone and other shifting kinds of soils that means we get sinkholes. (Remember that house that made the news because of one after pipeline drilling came to visit?)

And yes, there are people who are strangely OK with pipelines on their properties.  That is their right.  But if you look at it from a purely practical financial perspective, are they even adequately compensated for their land? Are they not only given a small one time paltry fee and is it not true that for subsequent pipeline owners, they don’t have to pay the land owner if new pipeline owners come in? It’s not like any affected land owners get annual compensation is there?

So economically speaking, is it ever worth it to let these gas pipeline leeches on your property? I don’t think so. To me it’s like having perpetual squatters who can cause explosions, pollute your wells, etc.

For the initial not our pipeline post I received positive comments, supportive comments, and threatening comments.  To those who disagree with me I say simply: First Amendment.  They haven’t repealed that yet in Washington.

So I learned the other day about another pipeline company.  And again with the re-purposing of old pipes for new gas and gas products which is so truly concerning. As a matter of fact The Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration issued a warning about this in September, 2014, didn’t they?

The company is one I am not familiar with called Adephia. And they are going to be sailing through Chester County PA and places like East Whiteland and East Goshen Townships because they are acquiring the old Interstate Energy pipeline. (If I am reading the map correctly – plug your address in here on the Pipeline Information Center Mapping Application.

(Yes that handy interactive map can tell you where the pipelines are.  I have friends who are NOT buying a house in a certain Chester County location because of the proximity of a pipeline to a property they were interested in.)

Kallanish Energy Daily News and Analysis: Pipeline buyer proposes converting line to gas from oil

The buyer of an 84-mile, 250,000-cubic-foot capacity pipeline in the Philadelphia area plans to convert the pipeline from oil to natural gas, adding new compression and valve stations to move fuel to its Marcus Hook, Pa., destination.

Adelphia Gateway, which said in November it was buying the pipeline for $189 million from Talen Energy, filed its 1,285-page application last week with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Adelphia, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources, announced the filing late Monday, the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper reported…..Adelphia Gateway plans to convert the southern 50-mile portion of the line, which formerly carried oil but has been idle since 2014, to transport gas southward to customers in the state’s counties of Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware.

So these companies all seem to say this is for our benefit until we the people discover it’s not?

I am not familiar with New Jersey Resources, either. The CEO is Laurence M. Downes.

According to Bloomberg, New Jersey Resources is in Wall, NJ and Mr. Downes compensation as of end of 2016 was  $4,875,320 and here is his bio:

Mr. Laurence M. Downes has been the Chairman of the Board of New Jersey Resources Corporation since September 1996 and has been its President and Chief Executive Officer since July 1995. Mr. Downes serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of New Jersey Natural Gas, NJR Clean Energy Ventures, NJR Energy Services, NJR Midstream and NJR Service Corporation. He has been a Director at New Jersey Resources Corporation since 1995 and Energen Corporation since May 2017. He serves as the Chairman of John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development’s National Advisory Board and Member of National Petroleum Council. Mr. Downes is a Director of the American Gas Association, Trustee of the American Gas Foundation, and a Member of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. Mr. Downes provides the Board with strong leadership and direction and a considerable amount of experience.He served as a Director of Questar Corporation from 2010 to September 2016. Mr. Downe has extensive knowledge of the energy industry, experience as the leader of the Company and innovative thinking. Mr. Downes’ board positions at other natural gas and energy-focused organizations have positioned him to bring experience and industry knowledge to his position as Chairman of the Board.Mr. Downes’ years of service on the Board, he has developed extensive knowledge in the areas of leadership, strategy, safety, risk oversight, management and corporate governance, each of which provides great value to the Board. He served as Chairman of the American Gas Association, Trustee of the American Gas Foundation. Mr. Downes is a Graduate of Iona College with B.B.A. in Finance and M.B.A.

Remind me again how Chester County residents are “compensated” for pipelines?

Yeah….. Not such a nice mental picture, is it?

So according to the Chester County Planning Website:

Interstate Energy Company (a subsidiary of Talen Energy) was acquired by New Jersey Resources’ Adelphia Gateway, LLC in November of 2017. As a result, the Interstate Energy Company content has been migrated to Adelphia Gateway, LLC’s website. Visit Website

The Adelphia Gateway Project, traversing portions of Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks and Northampton counties will convert the remaining 50 miles of an existing 84-mile pipeline in southeastern Pennsylvania from oil to natural gas delivery. The northern 34 miles of the pipeline — extending from western Bucks County to Martins Creek Terminal in Northampton County — were converted to deliver natural gas in 1996. This project will repurpose the southern 50-mile portion of the pipeline to flow natural gas utilizing existing infrastructure and will require minimal new construction. Once converted, the pipeline will transport approximately 91 million dekatherms per year of natural gas to the greater Philadelphia market.

When in service, the pipeline conversion from oil to natural gas will give customers in the greater Philadelphia area a new, “competitively-priced” source of natural gas. Adelphia Gateway intends to have delivery interconnects with local distribution companies (LDCs) and other industrial end users, such as natural gas-powered electric generation facilities, in various locations along the pipeline route.

A full project description and mapping can be viewed at the following links:

Project Activity

Adelphia Gateway, LLC applies to FERC for Certificate of Public Convenience

January 23, 2018 — Adelphia Gateway, LLC (Adelphia) filed an application for Adelphia Gateway Project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a certificate authority to acquire and convert certain existing pipeline and auxiliary facilities, to construct additional auxiliary facilities, and to own and operate the existing and new facilities as an interstate natural gas pipeline system. View Letter

You can also view Adelphia’s application on the FERC website. Select the eLibrary link from the left hand side (green and white image of a computer mouse), select eLibrary from the left column, and then use the “general search” for the Adelphia Gateway Project, and enter Docket Number CP18-46. You can also find information on the proposed project on the company’s website.  Contact information listed for the project is 800-843-3179 or info@adelphiagateway.com.

My head is spinning. How many of these companies are going to pop up???  How much of Chester County is going to be destroyed??

#DefendWhatYouLove #NoMorePipelines #MarinerEastLite

I strongly suggest people contact State Senator Andrew Dinniman:

http://www.senatordinniman.com/contact-us/contact-senator-dinniman

One North Church Street West Chester, PA 19380 Phone: 610.692.2112 Fax: 610.436.1721

I called and left a message for Don in Dinniman’s office.  That is whom I was told was taking pipeline related phone calls.

Call or email the township where you live.

You can also file an e-comment with FERC in Washington DC:

https://ferconline.ferc.gov/QuickComment.aspx

You may also still be able to file as an Intervenor Out of Time:

https://ferc.gov/docs-filing/efiling.asp

The docket number for Adelphia Gateway LLC is CP18-46-000 .

East Goshen Township filed as an Intervenor Out of Time.  I can’t find anything on East Whiteland’s website. I am very pleased to see East Goshen act in a timely manner. East Goshen Township now has a stand alone page on their website for Adelphia Gateway.

Adelphia Gateway on Twitter is @AdelphiaGateway

There is an ANTI- Adelphia Gateway Page on Facebook (I did not create it) called:

Stop The Adelphia Gateway

Other things to read in the news about Adelphia:

Saucon Source Letter to the Editor: Adelphia Pipeline Project is Dangerous, Unnecessary
By: JOSH POPICHAK | February 13, 2018 (Excerpt only click on article title to read all of it)

Lehigh Valley Live: Gas pipeline proposed from Martins Creek to Philadelphia
Updated Dec 30; Posted Dec 30

Philly.com: Business — Energy
Adelphia unveils its 84-mile natural gas pipeline through Philly; Will it spur protests?
Updated: JANUARY 16, 2018 — 12:33 PM EST by Andrew Maykuth, Staff Writer

#DefendWhatYouLove #NoMorePipelines #MarinerEastLite

I do not know about you, but I am over gas pipelines. It’s like Sisyphus has moved on from rocks to pipelines.

#DefendWhatYouLove #NoMorePipelines #MarinerEastLite

Photo courtesy of Del-Chesco United for Pipeline Safety

not our pipeline

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Pipeline and sinkhole. Just The Fact Please photo. November, 2017

Before I moved to Chester County, I was somewhat ambivalent about Sunoco and their pipelines. Among other things, I grew up with a father who was for years, in-house PR for a then major oil company.  And part of that was during the Exxon Valdez era.  But oil companies had deep pockets and what did I know? Nothing was near where we lived and those oil company deep pockets were always giving box loads of stuff to schools, bought full page ads in school newspapers for the kids of employees, etcetera.

When you first hear about problems with pipelines, pipeline construction, or even fracking, it is like this fuzzy thing out of focus ahead of you in the haze. It can’t possibly affect you. Until it does. And in my opinion, it is.   I have friends who hail from Western Pennsylvania who literally have been warning people for years.  And they are just nastily labeled “fracktivists”. Guess that is the new label for “concerned citizen”? Because I have got to tell you, the people I knew who once lived in Western PA are…wait for it…MOMS.  You know how dangerous moms are, right?

Then it seems like in an instant but a couple miles in either direction from where you live as far as the crown flies in any direction, stuff starts to happen.

Well issues.

Sinkholes.

You feel like local municipal officials and politicians are just covering their ears saying “na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na” in order to NOT have to listen to residents.  Respected environmental activists are labeled as being alarmists.

Then all of a sudden the  PA DEP seems to wake up and temporarily halts work on Sunoco’s Mariner 2 Pipeline.  Only as per residents in some affected Chester County neighborhoods and State Impact by NPR  that might not quite be true as they report on January 9, 2018:

When Danielle Otten woke up Monday morning, she didn’t expect to see men working on the Mariner East 2 pipeline construction site that sits about 40 feet from her backyard, along Devon Drive in Uwchlan Township, Chester County.

For one thing, work in the area had stalled after drilling dried up and damaged nearby water wells this past summer. And just last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued a court order halting construction along the 350-mile long pipeline after Sunoco/Energy Transfer Partners continued to violate its permits, causing damage to private water wells, streams and wetlands…..When DEP issued a stop work order to Sunoco last week, it appeared that all work would halt aside from drilling and erosion controls that had to be continued in order to prevent additional environmental damage. But a spokesman for the DEP now tells StateImpact that when it comes to anything other than earth disturbance or water crossings, the agency doesn’t have jurisdiction.

 

In Chester County, as a resident, you can’t avoid the truth of the pipelines. And the risks and dangers. So many of us are on wells. And so many with wells are already having issues. And then there are those other pesky things…you know like sinkholes and so on?

The jarring visuals you see with your own eyes like the beautiful swaths of lands torn assunder are burned into your brain.  Once you see it, you can’t un-see it and you wish you could.

Swing sets and play houses of small children sit in macabre juxtaposition to giant earth moving machines and huge pieces of pipe.

Giant walls, pipes, and earth moving machines also sit across the driveway from senior citizen apartment complexes and grocery stores.

Pipeline so close and on top of churches and schools in addition to residential neighborhoods and please, tell me, how is that safe?

Next to firehouses too? So basically, Sunoco puts those supposed to protect us at risk as well?

You have friends and former neighbors who have Sunoco gobbling up their land for the pipeline.  You count your blessing like we did that we moved long ago from certain parts of Chester County because otherwise this view could be your very own backyard:

Uwchlan Safety Coalition photo

Only you can’t help but wonder if your slice of heaven will remain unmolested by pipelines? Like Medieval Feudal Lords, you are never quite sure what they will swoop in and take, are you?

You are, as residents of Chester County and elsewhere, supposed to bend over and accept these new vistas:

My photo, taken July, 2017

When you say “no I think this is bad” there are people who will  jump all over you. “It’s perfectly safe. You don’t know what you are talking about.”

Perfectly safe? Is that why CBS This Morning ran and over FIVE minute segment on the national news this morning from coast to coast?

Sunoco is raping our land. They are depleting it, irrevocably changing it and in my opinion putting us all at risk.  It is not OUR pipeline, it is THEIR pipeline being forced upon us all and we are not benefiting from it.  This isn’t OUR infrastructure, it’s Sunoco’s infrastructure. What they take is being shipped OVERSEAS.

As another friend Ginny said to others:

Sunoco cannot replace the large, mature trees they are chopping down for this. Nor can they restore the fragile and important wetland there if they wreck it, just as they couldn’t restore the private wells that they wrecked in Marchwood this summer with this pipeline. 

Living with hazardous liquefied natural gas lines is not a part of living in suburbia. In fact it is reckless to put these lines through densely populated areas, right alongside houses, schools, apartment buildings, shopping centers, seniors homes, etc. 

And now, Sunoco also wants Chester County Library’s freaking lawn? (See Dragon Pipe Diary)

When does it stop?  When did Corporate America’s rights become more meaningful than ours in Chester and Delaware Counties and elsewhere in Pennsylvania?  Why are we as residents being forced to live with something that destroys and takes and give nothing back in return? Why don’t residents matter? Why do we spend so much time feeling like our elected officials have forsaken us on this issue?

And why is it when you mention anything about not liking or distrusting pipelines some fool will always hop up and cry foul partisan politics? I mean do they really think we are such imbeciles that an issue which is non-partisan and affects EVERYONE is an example of partisan politics?  Take off the dunce caps, because opposition to Mariner East is clearly bi-partisan.

Pipeline, East Goshen. My photo. Summer/Fall 2017

Today in addition to the CBS News report, Del-Chesco United for Pipeline Safety is a nonpartisan, fact-based, grassroots coalition of locally-based safety groups, made up of concerned Pennsylvanians from across our Commonwealth issued a press release:

Well guess what? I believe these folks, and this pipeline and it’s march across Chester County and elsewhere terrifies me.  These people protesting are our neighbors and friends. And there are quite the growing numbers of experts, environmentalists and others who believe these residents.

There is also a very important petition circling. It is directed at our rather elusive Governor Tom Wolf on Change.org asking him to protect our communities under the PA Health and Safety Statute.

Please sign and share this petition today.

Here are some articles:

Dragonpipe Diary: Sunoco’s destructive plans for the Chester County Library lawn

State Impact PA Despite DEP order to halt Mariner East 2 construction, some work is still allowedJANUARY 9, 2018 | 5:34 PM Susan Phillips

State Impact: Water problems persist along Mariner East pipeline route despite court interventionOCTOBER 12, 2017 | 5:03 PM BY JON HURDLE

State Impact: DEP issues violation to Sunoco for another spill of drilling fluidAUGUST 30, 2017 | 6:40 PM BY JON HURDLE

grist: BRIEFLY Stuff that matters PIPE DOWN

Daily Local: Pennsylvania DEP shuts down construction on Sunoco gas pipeline By Bill Rettew, brettew@dailylocal,com POSTED: 01/03/18, 5:25 PM EST

Daily Local: DEP accuses Sunoco of unauthorized drilling By Bill Rettew, brettew@dailylocal.com POSTED: 01/02/18, 3:49 PM EST

Daily Times, Phil Heron: Editorial: Economic benefits alone won’t resolve pipeline concerns

Look at the end of the day, did we come to Chester County for this view below? I don’t think so. We need to protect what is ours.  And what is ours, is not necessarily theirs.

#Resist

Uwchlan Safety Coalition Photo