Chester County Commissioners decried the pipeline emergency management plan they received from Sunoco, noting that large sections were blacked out for ‘security reasons.’
According to Mike Murphy, director of Chester County’s Department of Emergency Services, only around 5 percent of the plan is usable.
“Anger, frustration, exasperation, disgust – these words don’t even begin to cover how we feel about this latest action by Sunoco,” Chester County Commissioners’ Chair Michelle Kichline said. “To call this a ‘plan’ is ridiculous, and to say that they are cooperating is an insult.”
Chester County has reached to Sunoco on numerous occasions over the past two years, the county said, to gather pipeline emergency safety information that would enable the Department of Emergency Services (DES) to work with first responders to better prepare for mass notification and neighborhood emergency procedures in the event of a pipeline incident. DES leaders and the County Commissioners formally contacted Sunoco directly as well as through the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA).
Sunoco agreed to provide the emergency plan through the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which redacted a substantial portion of the plan.
“We reached out to all pipeline operators with a presence in Chester County and the only one that refused to provide an emergency plan was Sunoco,” Chester County Commissioner Kathi Cozzone said. “None of the other pipeline operator plans include large chunks of blacked-out information, and the reason for this is that none of the other operators insisted on sending the plan through the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.”
At the end of February, the Commissioners announced the County’s plan to take legal action against Sunoco, beginning with intervention in the Flynn et al. v. Sunoco Pipeline LP proceedings before the PUC. The Petition to Intervene was filed today.
The Commissioners also notified Sunoco Pipeline LP of the termination of two temporary easements on the Chester County Library property which were granted to Sunoco in 2017. The notice explained that there were no terms for renewal of the temporary easements in the 2017 agreements.
“Because the document we received withholds critical safety information we are exploring further legal action to get what our first responders really need, and what our citizens deserve,” Commissioner Terence Farrell said. “Those police, fire and EMS personnel on the front line are doing everything that they can to be trained and equipped for a pipeline disaster. The one part missing is Sunoco’s comprehensive emergency plan, and despite Sunoco’s claims, we still do not have that.”