Contact: Tim Fitchett, Attorney tfitchett@fairshake-els.org
On October 6, 2020, Clean Air Council (CAC), through counsel, filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue Sunoco Pipeline L.P. (SPLP) for violations of its Erosion and Sedimentation Control permits related to the Mariner East II pipelines.
Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services of Pittsburgh, PA, which is representing Clean Air Council in this matter, filed the notice outlining an alleged pattern and practice of preventing professional geologists (PGs) working on the pipeline from properly inspecting and investigating environmental conditions, including subsidence, near the pipeline. The Notice of Intent to Sue contends that:
● SPLP prevented the PGs from talking with drillers, depriving them of required information.
● SPLP prevented PGs from reporting potentially dangerous subsidence outside of an arbitrarily determined boundary.
● SPLP failed to adequately monitor subsidence incidents that were reported.
● SPLP required the PGs’ reports to be editable and altered those reports before submission to regulatory agencies.
● SPLP required the PGs to conform their findings with those of the Utility Inspectors, regardless of their actual findings.
Given the limitations placed on PGs and the potential alteration of their reports, CAC contends that SPLP has violated their Erosion and Sedimentation permits. Those permits require that SPLP submit true and accurate reports to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to ensure compliance with the Clean Streams Law.
“Sunoco is so scared of what its scientists will find in investigating its pipeline construction that it’s muzzled them and doctored their reports” said Joseph Minott, Executive Director and Chief Counsel of Clean Air Council. “Building pipelines based on fake science is dangerous and fraudulent.”
The Notice of Intent to Sue can be found here.
