View Gallery Shopping Cart icon Buy Photo Local officials in Chester County have asked Sunoco Pipeline LP to pay for the extension of municipal water service to an enclave of residents whose private wells were impaired last week by the company’s pipeline construction.
The West Whiteland Township Supervisors told residents in a post on the township’s website that it does not have jurisdictional authority over the contamination of water wells that occurred after Sunoco Pipeline began drilling in the area to install its Mariner East 2 pipeline.
Although most of the 350-mile-long pipeline is being built in a trench near the surface, Sunoco is using the horizontal drilling methods to install the pipeline through densely populated areas of Chester and Delaware Counties.
The technique involves drilling a bore through bedrock into which a coated-steel pipe is inserted and cemented into place.
State Sen. Andy Dinniman (D., Chester) suggested that Sunoco was in a rush to resume drilling before test results from the water wells were released.
“Were these tests able to determine if any lasting damage has been done to the aquifer and, if so, what efforts is Sunoco taking to mitigate this damage?” he wrote to company officials in an email on Monday.
Extension of public water service to the homes would be an expensive, permanent solution.
But one resident said he was not eager to pay a utility for water he now pumps from the ground for free.
“If I have to hook up to city water, they should have to pay my water bills for the rest of my life,” said Benjamin Eckert, 54, a Valleyview Drive homeowner.
Shields said drillers often penetrate aquifers without impairing neighboring water wells, adding that Sunoco suspended drilling as soon as residents complained.