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Are pipeline companies required to remove lines that are out of service?

Question from Margaret Quinn, Uwchlan Township

  • Jon Hurdle
A Sunoco pipeline that has been exposed in a creek at Uwchlan Township, Chester County is not Mariner East 1, as the company initially told state and local officials, but an inactive line, the company said Friday.

David Mano/Submitted

A Sunoco pipeline that has been exposed in a creek at Uwchlan Township, Chester County is not Mariner East 1, as the company initially told state and local officials, but an inactive line, the company said Friday.

Margaret Quinn’s question followed community concerns last summer that a length of pipe in a creek bed in the township was part of Sunoco’s Mariner East 1, a repurposed 1930s-era pipeline that carries natural gas liquids from western Pennsylvania to Marcus Hook in Delaware County, using the same right of way as the new Mariner East 2 line that is still under construction.

Sunoco said in July that the pipe section had been part of ME1 but was abandoned in 2015 and had been grouted and capped. The company initially told the Public Utility Commission that the pipe was part of ME1, but then said it had investigated further and determined that it was an inactive section of the line that had been replaced.

Pipeline companies are not required to remove lengths of pipeline that are no longer in service and have been abandoned, according to the Public Utility Commission. It said pipeline owners are required to map abandoned lines under the amended PA One Call law, which is designed to prevent contractors hitting underground infrastructure such as pipelines during construction projects.

“There is no state or federal requirement to remove abandoned pipe,” said Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, a PUC spokesman. But he said some easement agreements may require the removal of abandoned equipment.

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