The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has issued technical deficiency letters to Sunoco Pipeline, L.P. regarding their Chapter 105 and 102 permit applications for the Pennsylvania Pipeline Project (Mariner East 2). Letters were submitted to all three regional offices along the proposed route, with 76 pages of deficiencies published for the Southwest region alone.
This is a clear acknowledgment by the DEP that the concerns raised by MWA, Clean Air Council and others during the technical review process and public comment period were valid. In fact, many of the deficiencies listed are wholly separate from those pointed out by concerned citizens in their individual comments.
Sunoco now has until November 1 to respond to the letters from DEP but will likely request an extension due to the massive amount of revisions needed to bring their applications close to completeness. If you would like to view the technical deficiency letters, visit the following links for each respective regional office: Southwest, Southcentral, Southeast.
A huge thanks to all who worked so diligently on their technical comments regarding these permit applications and to those who attended the public hearings and spoke out against the clearly incomplete nature of the Chapter 105 and 102 permits. Although this is good news in the short term, the fight is far from over. We would encourage everyone to continue putting pressure on your elected officials and let them know that we need a swift transition to clean energy rather than increased dependence on dirty, fossil fuels.
Keep checking back to MWA’s blog for further updates as this story continues to unfold.