Fine in works for Sunoco Pipeline
FINLEYVILLE – The state Department of Environmental Protection said it was preparing to fine Sunoco Pipeline over large boring mud leaks into small tributaries of Mingo Creek as the cleanup effort made additional progress Monday in Union Township.
DEP spokesman John Poister said regulators were still determining whether to issue Sunoco other fines for leaks and erosion and sediment problems on the company’s construction projects or combine all of the notices of violation into one civil penalty.
“We’re still considering exactly what will be the next step,” Poister said Monday when the DEP’s water pollution biologist began investigating the impacts the leaks had on the aquatic life in a stream that received most of the material, one that hugs Route 88 at Mingo Creek Presbyterian Church.
A undetermined amount of the nontoxic boring lubricant named bentonite surfaced in two locations and drained into the streams in leaks discovered about 6 p.m. Thursday. It wasn’t immediately known when the problem began.
The company was focusing on damage stretching for two miles and involving a second unnamed creek along Patterson Road. The stream beside the church is named Froman Run. Investigators have been mistakenly referring to Froman as Little Mingo Creek.
“We still don’t know the cause,” Poister said, dismissing the possibility the mud surfaced through a mine subsidence crack in the Earth. “Something is happening to cause the mud to come out.”
Sunoco spokesman Jeffrey P. Shields said the company will reserve comment until it “hears from the DEP on these matters.”
Sunoco’s subcontractor, Precision Pipeline, by Monday had finished boring a 2,900-foot-long horizontal hole as many as 200 feet under the creek and Route 88 for a new pipeline to ship Marcellus Shale natural gas byproducts, DEP water quality specialist Howard Dunn Jr. said. The project involved a new 50-mile pipeline crossing Washington County to Delmont in Westmoreland County.
Dunn said the mud continued to surface until the project was completed.
“It’s always a hope that it doesn’t get into the stream, but it does happen,” Dunn said.
The DEP was still determining Monday afternoon what the next step in the cleanup would involve. Sunoco said the effort to remove the mud was expected to wrap up today. The department was unable Monday afternoon to provide additional information on the other problematic issues on the pipeline.