Pipeline company convicted, must restore water sources
Two subsidiaries of the pipeline company Energy Transfer were convicted of criminal charges related to their conduct during the construction of two major pipelines, one of which starts in Butler County.
State Attorney General Josh Shapiro said ETC Northeast Pipeline pleaded no contest to nine counts of Clean Streams Law violations for its criminal conduct related to the construction of the 42.5-mile Revolution Pipeline, which starts in Butler County and is routed through Beaver and Allegheny counties before reaching a gas-processing plant in Washington County.
In addition, a state grand jury found ETC Northeast repeatedly ignored environmental protocols and custom plans that were created to minimize erosion and the possibility of a landslide at a site in Beaver County it was restoring to preconstruction appearance.
The lack of erosion control devices contributed to two landslides, one of which caused a gas leak that resulted in a devastating explosion in 2018 that resulted in burned homes, barns, vehicles and more than two acres of mature trees.
ETC was fined $30 million in January by the state Department of Environmental Protection for the explosion.
ETC was charged with nine counts of environmental crimes related to its conduct during the construction of the Revolution Pipeline.
Sunoco Pipeline, also a subsidiary of Energy Transfer, was convicted for misconduct during construction of the Mariner East 2 Pipeline, which crosses 17 counties in southern Pennsylvania.
In those charges, Sunoco Pipeline repeatedly allowed thousands of gallons of drilling fluid to escape underground, which sometimes surfaced in fields, backyards, streams, lakes and wetlands, among other crimes.
“We have a constitutional right in Pennsylvania to clean air and pure water,” Shapiro said. “It’s a right that was enshrined in our state constitution at a time when the people of Pennsylvania learned a tough lesson firsthand — the health of our children, and our economic future, depended on protecting our environment from reckless profit and unchecked corporate interests.”
