Pennsylvania A.G. launches criminal investigation into Sunoco pipeline spill
Earlier this month, the state Department of Environmental Protection ordered Energy Transfer to supply residents with bottled water.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office said Monday that its environmental crimes section is investigating a Sunoco pipeline spill that contaminated drinking water wells in a Bucks County community.
“I can confirm we are investigating,” said Brett Hambright, a spokesperson for the office.
Last week, Edward Louka, first assistant district attorney to Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn, told residents and representatives of Sunoco during a public meeting that the office had asked the state to look into the spill detected in January.
“We are aware and concerned with the situation,” Louka said at the March 11 meeting. “The Attorney General’s Office has an environmental crimes section. On Feb. 13, District Attorney Schorn did refer this to them.”
Louka said that the state investigation is in its “initial stages.”
Sunoco is owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer. Representatives for Energy Transfer could not be reached Monday for comment.
In addition, a group of residents in the Mount Eyre neighborhood in Washington Crossing, Upper Makefield Township, where the spill occurred, has hired an attorney.
Earlier this month, the state Department of Environmental Protection ordered Energy Transfer to supply all residents of the neighborhood with bottled water and to install and monitor well filters.
» READ MORE: Sunoco ordered to supply homes with bottled water and filtration systems in the wake of jet fuel spill
Energy Transfer has conducted hundreds of tests on well water throughout the Mount Eyre neighborhood and within a one-mile radius of where the leak occurred. To date, six wells tested above drinking water standards for petroleum products. Five additional wells had detectable amounts of petroleum contaminants, but below statewide health standards.
The leak was detected Jan. 31, weeks after residents reported smelling a petroleum odor. Residents say they don’t trust Sunoco or the testing.
Sunoco told the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration that 156 barrels of jet fuel had been released through a “slow drip” in the pipe, which it then repaired with a sleeve.
However, a report by PHMSA determined that the line had leaked for at least 16 months before it was discovered and that the line poses a “risk to public safety, property, or the environment.” It ordered Sunoco to reduce the flow as a way of lessening pressure in the pipe.
Sunoco’s 14-inch steel Twin Oaks Pipeline, built in 1958, transports mostly jet fuel, diesel, and gasoline from Sunoco’s Twin Oaks Terminal in Aston, Delaware County, to the company’s Newark Terminal in Newark, N.J. It includes a pump station in Bucks County.
The pipeline runs about 106 miles mostly through suburbs, crossing numerous rivers, including the Delaware, and runs adjacent to numerous state and local parks.
A report this week by PA Environment Digest, a blog run by former DEP secretary David Hess, noted that Energy Transfer has been fined more than $48.1 million by the state for, “multiple, serious violations related to the construction of the Mariner East Pipelines and the Revolution Pipelines starting in 2018 that resulted in an explosion, contamination of water supplies, pollution of the Marsh Creek State Park lake and the lake at the Raystown Lake Recreation Area.”