Sinkhole Issues Too Frequently Misrepresented

Following last week’s rain caused by tropical storm Fay, a number of sinkholes manifested in Chester County around the Mariner East pipeline system. Reporting has been clear that the pipeline has not been exposed; however construction crews have been proactive with their response to fill the sinkholes with the direct oversight of regulators.

A local media member wrote of the latest sinkholes that: “The carnival is back in town. Like a game of whack-a-mole, as soon as Sunoco/Energy Transfer fills in sinkholes with truckloads of grout near pipelines, more subsidences occur.” Forgive us for having an itch for objective journalism, which certainly went un-scratched in this article.

The author lends all of four sentences to the oversight and ongoing regulatory investigation into sinkhole remediation process involving the state’s Public Utility Commission and the Safety Division of the Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement. As the release notes, “I & E has been, and continues to, closely monitor a string of events…No active pipelines were exposed as a result of the subsidence and engineers for the Safety Division continue to closely monitor the situation.”

Despite the pipeline construction fatigue experienced by many Southeast Pennsylvania, anti-pipeliners are again using these subsidence caused by intense rain to call for construction delays or shutdowns. Meaningless delay is a great way to combat construction fatigue, but these activists care more about orders from their out-of-state funders than local resident’s desire for construction to be complete.

Mariner East is a legally permitted project that has been strictly regulated since construction began. Much of the project outside of Chester and Delaware Counties is complete and the best way to solve local resident’s construction fatigue is to get the project completed so life can get back to normal.