Sunoco to replace private well water with public supply in Chester County.
Sunoco Pipeline agreed on Tuesday to pay for public water to be supplied to about 30 homes in Chester County’s West Whiteland Township where water from private wells turned cloudy after a Sunoco pipeline drilling operation for the Mariner East 2 hit a spring, a township official said.
Turner said the company had opted to convert the homes to public water because of an expectation that private well water would remain cloudy.
“It’s going to continue to give the people cloudy water and they are never going to be satisfied,” he said.
The company’s statement about the spring to the township came a week before it publicly acknowledged on July 3 that private well water had been contaminated, and began to supply affected residents with bottled water, extra filtration systems, and offers of local hotels in which to stay or bathe while domestic water supplies were disrupted.
“We were notified by Sunoco that they thought they had tapped into a spring,” Turner said.
“This particular drill is going in 3,000 feet, and they are not even a third of the way in when they start to see some water.” He said the township received its first complaints about cloudy water on July 3, and that Sunoco immediately responded.
“I called the Sunoco people on Monday, July 3, and within half an hour there was a team of about ten folks up there,” Turner said.
Initial test results from an independent water-testing company began to come in to the township on Tuesday, and unexpectedly showed that private well water was not contaminated with bentonite clay, also known as drilling mud, Turner said.
It’s just cloudy water,” he said.