The battle over whether a redundant risk assessment should be conducted on Mariner East 2 pipeline continues to be debated by the Delaware County Council. Last week the council decided to move forward on an altered proposal.
Pipeline experts are saying the proposed move is excessive. In a recent article in the Philly Inquirer Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts, Inc., a consulting firm that advises government agencies and industry on pipeline safety, said the risk assessment proposed by the council is “unscientific and technically flawed.”
Kuprewicz agrees that a proposal by the Delaware County Council to fund a risk assessment does not make sense and if the county is concerned about possible risks that the money would be better used to increase first responders abilities to respond to emergency incidents.
The Mariner East project underwent a rigorous permitting process on the federal, state, and local levels that took five years. Safety measures on the project exceed federal requirements, making it safer than the thousands of miles of pipeline already in Pennsylvania.
As Kuprewicz was quoted saying “a 20-inch pipeline commands respect, not fear. And what Sunoco may need to be doing is determining how to communicate to these city fathers that they have this pipeline under control.”
To conduct a duplicative study is a waste of taxpayer dollars. These types of stall tactics by radical opposition groups are not in the best interest of the communities through Pennsylvania.