A lawsuit that began life a year ago, in March 2018, has finally been settled between suburbanite landowners near Philadelphia and Sunoco Logistics Partners over construction activities related to the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project.
Last March MDN told you that underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) work in Chester County had led to a third sinkhole developing in that area (see 3rd Sinkhole Appears Near ME2 Construction in Chester County, PA). For most of its length, ME2 is being built right next to ME1 (Mariner East 1), a liquids pipeline originally built in 1931. The third sinkhole in Chester County exposed a portion of ME1, leading to the state Public Utility Commission temporarily shutting down ME1 (see PA PUC Shuts Down Mariner 1 Pipeline Due to Mariner 2 Sinkhole).
Two residents living near the sinkholes in Chester County filed a class action lawsuit against Sunoco last March, claiming the company was negligent for using a drilling technique (HDD) not suitable for the geology in the area (see Philly Suburbanites Launch Class Action Lawsuit Against ME2 Pipe). The lawsuit was just, now a year later, settled out of court. Details of the settlement are sealed and won’t be made public.
Sunoco and a group of Pennsylvania residents have reached a settlement in a proposed class action over property damage allegedly caused by construction of the controversial Mariner East 2 pipeline project, a Pennsylvania federal court said Monday.
The proposed class of homeowners and Sunoco Pipeline LP notified the court that they have reached an undisclosed settlement, prompting U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond to issue an order dismissing the dispute with prejudice. The homeowners had alleged that construction of the company’s controversial Mariner East 2 pipeline caused significant property damage and left them at risk of possible catastrophic explosion.
The homeowners, Mary and Russel March and Jaret Savitski, slapped the companies with the proposed class action suit in Pennsylvania state court last March, alleging an underground explosion that damaged their property was caused by Sunoco using a construction technique known as “horizontal directional drilling,” according to court filings. The suit claimed the explosion created sinkholes and surface depressions and potentially destabilized the existing Mariner East 1 pipeline.
The Mariner East 2 project is intended to ferry butane and propane produced from the Marcellus and Utica shales in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio to a Philadelphia-area refinery.
The project has also drawn attention from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which halted construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline in January 2018 following a string of violations, including unauthorized discharges of drilling fluids and failing to live up to an August 2017 settlement with environmental groups that lifted a previous restriction on drilling activities on certain parts of the pipeline.
In addition to threatening the integrity of the Mariner East 1 pipeline, the homeowners’ complaint said the geological changes and sinkholes caused cracked walls, chimneys and driveways at homes in the area. The integrity of underground water and sewer lines has also come into question.
Sunoco urged the court to toss the loss of underground support claim against them in October, arguing that the homeowners can’t bring the claim because the actions at the heart of the suit did not occur on their property, a requirement of such claims.
Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General confirmed that it had accepted a referral from the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office to open a criminal investigation into the pipelines, which have been cited for repeated spills, water contamination and other problems in recent years.*
*Law360 (Mar 26, 2019) – Sunoco, Pa. Residents Settle Suit Over Pipeline Work Damage
The original lawsuit filed by the March’s and Savitski:
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The court order dismissing the case, now that it’s been settled out of court:
ecf-paed-uscourts-gov-doc1-153117821232
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