exclusive waivers 3-25-20

Late on Wednesday (March 25, 2020), Sunoco announced it had received all the waivers it had requested the previous Friday, releasing it from obeying Governor Wolf’s shut-down orders. According to the company’s press release, “Included in today’s approvals are a mix of partially completed horizontal directional drills (HDDs), road bores and open excavation sites across the commonwealth. We currently have no remaining waiver requests pending….” You can read the full press release here.

These approvals fly in the face of the orders Governor Wolf has imposed on ordinary businesses (and ordinary citizens). When construction resumes, Sunoco workers will provide a perfect conduit for Covid-19 to spread across the state, aggravating the problems that are already threatening to overwhelm our healthcare system.

It is an outrage that this is being permitted. Already, thousands of people are sick and 15 people have died from Covid-19 in Pennsylvania. The numbers are doubling every two days. How many extra Pennsylvanians must die just so that Sunoco can rush its pipeline to completion and European petrochemical plants can make more plastic?