DEP logo 5-30-19

Alex Bomstein, of Clean Air Council, alerted me to a DEP 5-day comment period that is expiring today. Public comments are solicited for the permitting of horizontal directional drilling (HDD) at a location at the border of Uwchlan and Upper Uwchlan Townships in Chester County. It is called the “Pennsylvania Drive” drill site, and it is close to the Eagleview “town center” development, southeast of Marsh Creek Lake.

Bomstein suggests making at least the following points in your comments:

  • Why in the world should DEP be approving any new work on ME2 right now, in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis?
  • The DEP asked Sunoco for the results of its geophysical survey of this site. In response, Sunoco is claiming it is confidential. There is nothing confidential about geophysical survey information; this is a transparent ploy to make this information inaccessible to the public. Insist that the geophysical survey be released to the public.
  • Sunoco has not provided the demonstration that DEP asked for showing the ground will be stable above the borehole. It has just said, basically, “we’ll check to make sure it’s OK.” Sunoco is obviously about the least trustworthy entity to be making that statement.

You can see the history of this permit application by going to the DEP’s Mariner East “HDD Reevaluation Table” here and scrolling to the very last line of the table. This site has already gone through one round of comments, and the DEP has requested a minimal response, but even so Sunoco’s response has been inadequate.

Please get your comments in today. You can email them to ra-eppipelines@pa.gov. Mention that you are commenting on the “Pennsylvania Drive” HDD, identified as PA-CH-0124.0000-RD.