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This week, a petition was put up on the left-leaning activist platform, Change.org by “Concerned Pennsylvanians” in Chester and Delaware Counties urging Governor Wolf to oppose the Mariner East 2 pipeline. The petition provides selective understanding of the construction process and wholly misunderstands the placement of existing energy infrastructure projects in Pennsylvania. First of all,…
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Natural gas pipelines and utilities must adhere to strict federal and state regulations through the construction, testing, and replacing of infrastructure for pipelines. Overall, these regulations collectively work to ensure system integrity, and to protect people, property, and environment in the areas along the pipeline. According to a 2016 Congressional Research Service (CSR) report, “The…
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Curiously, many groups and individuals opposed to pipelines in addition to the media constantly get their terminology wrong when discussing the construction process for pipelines in Pennsylvania. Every industry uses certain terminology for different things so it is understandable that those not trained in the construction or energy industry misinterpret and misreport activities. As has…
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The Middletown Township has hired Accufacts to do a quantitative risk assessment on the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. According to The Delaware County Daily Times, the agreement follows a similar agreement in February with Quest Consultants, who were concurrently hired by the anti-pipeline group Middletown Coalition for Community Safety to complete an independent study. The…
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Looking through news coverage of pipeline infrastructure, there is definite misunderstanding of what inadvertent returns are. The simple and necessary point to start with here is – Inadvertent returns are not spills. According to licensed professional geologist, Bill Godsey, it is “expected that drilling fluid can and will rise through naturally occurring, pre-existing cracks in…
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Transmission lines like Mariner East 2 have to go through lengthy public processes with heavy oversight. They go a step beyond gathering lines, which are largely unregulated. Diverse sources of energy generation have historically drawn attention to ranging issue areas around production and gathering methods of oil and gas. Increasingly, this energy development is underway…
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a new study today on the natural gas liquids (NGL) processing and production capacity in the Appalachian region. The study underscores the progress of the NGL processing capacity over the past decade and the role pipelines have in bolstering energy connectivity throughout the Northeast region. The study details…
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There are some serious misconceptions regarding the Mariner East pipeline projects. First, “spills” and “inadvertent returns” are not the same phenomena. Across news and social media coverage, this narrative of the spills across Pennsylvania liked with the pipeline has obscured real understanding of what we’re actually talking about here. According to the former head of the…
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There has been a lot of chatter about the Mariner East projects across the news outlets and social media platforms in Pennsylvania and through the region. There is a real need to inject facts into this conversation to elevate this chatter to educated understanding of what this project entails. That is the purpose of this…
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