Governor Wolf Halt Mariner Now
Governor Tom Wolf
On Wednesday October 16, residents from across Pennsylvania delivered the first run of this petition, with over a 1000 signatures, to Governor Wolf's office in Harrisburg. But we are not done! We will be sending a new copy to Gov. Wolf each month with more signatures. Please sign and share!
Your rights, your safety, and your health have been violated. Sunoco’s reckless pipeline operations have put your health and safety at risk and polluted the environment.
Three separate risk assessments have been conducted to assess the dangers of Sunoco’s proposed hazardous, highly volatile liquids export pipeline marketed as Mariner East 2. Already, Mariner East 2 has been plaguing residents with sinkholes and other impacts. One of these sinkholes appeared in Delaware County in September of this year.
Sunoco has begun constructing Mariner East 2 near the easement for their older Mariner East 1 pipeline, which poses increased risk for leaks and explosions, something Sunoco has a history of causing. In 2017, the Mariner East 1 pipeline leaked 20 barrels of ethane and propane. In September 2018, Sunoco’s Revolution pipeline exploded, destroying a house in Beaver County.
According to StateImpact Pennsylvania, the DEP has issued over 80 notices of violation for the development of the Mariner East 2 pipeline and has fined Sunoco over $12.6 million for permit violations. However, fines do not erase the damage. These violations pose serious risks to the health and safety of residents near the pipeline.
Additionally, the materials proposed to be transported in this pipeline are largely intended for export overseas. This is not a “natural gas” pipeline...its contents, plastics precursors, are not even intended for use in our country!
Sponsored by
To:
Governor Tom Wolf
From:
[Your Name]
Dear Governor Wolf,
As Governor of our Commonwealth, you are charged with ensuring the health, safety and welfare of Pennsylvanians. The Mariner East Pipelines- capable of producing a blast up to a mile wide or more- are situated near schools, neighborhoods, day cares, hospitals, houses of worship, and shopping malls all across Pennsylvania. The Mariner East pipelines impose unacceptable levels of risk upon Pennsylvanians across 17 counties of our state. Given your inherent responsibilities as Governor to protect Pennsylvania communities and schools, as outlined in Title 35 Pa. Code, sections 7301 and 7701, we demand that you halt the construction and operations of all Mariner East pipelines until the safety risks they present to schools and the general public have been fully mitigated to protect public health and safety.
Members of our coalitions have been sounding the alarm on Mariner East for over three years. Thousands of concerned residents have joined in seeking your action through letters, postcards, e-mails, phone calls, and a petition signed by over 6000 residents that was hand-delivered to your office exactly 2 years ago today. We have engaged in direct communication with senior members of your administration, including formal in-person meetings with Secretary McDonnell of the DEP in February 2017, and with you in December 2017. We met with you again just last month to once again demand action to protect our vulnerable communities. Your answer - to acknowledge the safety risks imposed upon us by Mariner East and make promises to “do better next time” - is wholly unacceptable.
Governor Wolf: our children, our families, our communities will not be collateral damage to Energy Transfer’s pipeline project, nor to the larger Frack to Plastic petrochemical plan for this state.
We have already experienced the harms of Mariner East. Residents across the state have seen their drinking water contaminated, their wells run dry, their local streams run thick with drilling mud. As distressing as these impacts are for our communities, they pale in comparison to the likely consequences of a leak of hazardous highly volatile liquids, a threat which looms every day that construction and operations progress.
The urgency of our request to you to Halt Mariner Now is rooted in the amount of time which has already passed, the critical nature of what our communities are currently experiencing and the severity of what we are facing. We therefore ask for your answer in short order. October 30 will be two weeks from delivery of this letter. We trust that will be adequate time for you to declare a moratorium on Mariner East construction and operations until the safety issues are properly addressed.
Signed,