Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she travelled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.
A view of the Delaware River from Morrisville, Pa. The Delaware River Basin Commission voted Wednesday on a resolution that could result in a ban on fracking in the Basin.
Cheers erupted at the Delaware River Basin Commission meeting Wednesday on the campus of Bucks County Community College in Newtown after commissioners from three states including Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware, approved a resolution that could lead to a fracking ban in the Delaware River watershed. New Jersey abstained and the federal representative from the Army Corps of Engineers voted no, which elicited a round of boos.
The Delaware River Basin Commission regulates water quality and quantity for the river and its tributaries, which provide drinking water for about 15 million people in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The governors of each state, who send delegates to the meetings, serve as commissioners while the federal government is represented by the Army Corps of Engineers, which answers directly to the White House through the Council on Environmental Quality.
The 3-1-1 vote passing the resolution starts a rule making process that could last into 2018. Staff members have until Nov. 30 to come up with a proposal, which will then be subject to public comment and hearings. In essence, the rules would apply to any gas operations that utilize fracking in Wayne and Pike counties, the only part of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region that drains into the Delaware river. Continue Reading →
Dan Plummer fishes for trout in the Delaware River, Delaware County New York. The Delaware River Basin Commission has proposed a ban on fracking along the river.
The Delaware River Basin Commission confirmed on Monday that it will consider adopting new rules that would ban natural gas drilling in the basin, a policy that would formalize a de facto moratorium that has been in place since 2010.
The interstate regulator of water quality and supply in the basin said in a statement that its public meeting this week will consider a resolution that would require its executive director to draft a new rule containing the proposed ban, which would be sent out for public comment by the end of November, and potentially adopted later.
“If the proposed resolution is approved by the commission on Sept. 13, the revised draft rules to be published on a later date would include prohibitions related to the production of natural gas utilizing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing within the Delaware River Basin,” the DRBC said in a press release. Continue Reading →
The Delaware River on the Pennsylvania side at the Delaware Water Gap. The Delaware River Basin Commission plans to propose a permanent ban on fracking, according to an AP report.
The Delaware River Basin Commission plans to propose a permanent ban on fracking, according to a report by the Associated Press. The AP cited an anonymous source within the DRBC, who said the agency planned an announcement on Friday. DRBC spokesman Clarke Rupert, would not comment other than to refer to the official DRBC agenda for its September 13 public meeting, which does not include a reference to gas drilling.
The five-member commission has been reviewing whether or not to allow the controversial natural gas drilling process along the Delaware River for several years. The ban would include Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Pike and Wayne counties in Northeast Pennsylvania. New York has already imposed a shale gas drilling ban.
Maya van Rossum with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network pushed for a moratorium and has been advocating for a permanent ban on fracking since 2008.
“Translating our moratorium into a ban is just…it’s rewarding beyond words,” she said. Continue Reading →
This July 27, 2011 file photo shows a farmhouse in the background framed by pipes connecting pumps where the hydraulic fracturing process in the Marcellus Shale layer to release natural gas was underway at a Range Resources site in Claysville, Pa. After announcing an $8.9 million dollar fine against the driller two years ago, DEP quietly settled the case with no financial penalty.
More than two years after the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued a record-breaking $8.9 million fine against driller Range Resources with tough talk about cracking down on faulty drilling operations, the department quietly settled the case this week without issuing any financial penalties.
The fine was issued on May 11, 2015 after the DEP said the company continually failed to fix a gas well that polluted five residential wells, groundwater and a stream with methane in Lycoming County. Range appealed the case to the Environmental Hearing Board.
Range Resources originally drilled the well in the winter of 2011, and fracked it in June of that year. The DEP issued a notice of violation in September 2013, citing a faulty cement job. Despite that notice, state regulators said the company did not fix the well. Continue Reading →
A view of the PJM Interconnection control room. PJM is the largest grid operator in North America. A report out by the Department of Energy this week says cheap natural gas is to blame for coal plant closures.
The Department of Energy says coal and nuclear are still needed to support the nation’s power grid, and the main reason for coal plant closures results from abundant, cheap shale gas production. The report had been ordered by Trump’s Secretary of Energy Rick Perry who backs coal and has said solar and wind threatened the reliability of electricity production.
The electric grid is in good shape for now despite tremendous changes in electricity generation, according to the report. Environmentalists had worried that renewables would be slammed in the report, they weren’t. The Department of Energy made it clear that the main reason for coal plant closures is cheap shale gas supplies, much more so than regulations or solar and wind subsidies.
But it provides suggestions for shoring up coal and nuclear, including curbing environmental regulations for coal such as New Source Review permits, which are aimed at limiting air pollution. And it encouraged speeding up permits for new nuclear plants. Continue Reading →
A protest sign at Camp White Pine near construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) is building the ME2. On Tuesday it filed a lawsuit against protestors of its Dakota Access line in North Dakota.
The pipeline builder behind construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline has sued activists who protested the company’s Dakota Access line in North Dakota last year. Energy Transfer Partners, which recently merged with Sunoco Logistics, filed a federal racketeering lawsuit in North Dakota on Tuesday. The complaint alleges environmental groups, including Greenpeace, as well as some individuals, were engaged in criminal activity to prevent pipeline construction and line the pockets of environmental groups through increased donations.
While the Mariner East 2 is currently under construction, ETP was successful in completing the Dakota Access line and it went into production this year.
The suit refers to the North Dakota protestors as “rogue eco-terrorist groups who employ patterns of criminal activity and campaigns of misinformation to target legitimate companies and industries with fabricated environmental claims and other purported misconduct, inflicting billions of dollars in damage.”
This April 26, 2017 photo shows Jim O'Neill walking through a flooded street in front of his home in Manahawkin N.J. after a moderate storm. He lives in a low-lying area near the Jersey shore, and is often affected by back bay flooding that is expected to increas due to sea level rise. President Trump revoked rules that would have required federally funded infrastructure projects to take rising sea levels into account.
President Trump has rolled back rules aimed at protecting federal infrastructure projects from rising sea levels and dangerous storms caused by climate change. Trump announced the move on Tuesday, at a press conference touting plans to fast track the building of roads and bridges.
Just before engaging in a hostile exchange with reporters over the violence in Charlottesville, President Trump said the current environmental rules governing construction of federal infrastructure projects created delays and costs.
“This overregulated permitting process is a massive, self-inflicted wound on our country,” Trump said standing at a podium in Trump Tower in New York City. “It’s disgraceful. Denying our people much needed investments in their community.” Continue Reading →
This map was created by FracTracker Alliance with data provided by the Clean Air Council.
Sunoco’s pipeline construction has resulted in 90 spills at 42 distinct locations across the state, according to new information provided as part of ongoing litigation. The amount of drilling mud spilled into aquifers, streams and wetlands across the state is estimated at about 220,000 gallons.
The Clean Air Council, which has challenged the DEP’s permits to Sunoco to build the pipeline, acquired the information as part of discovery. Responding to a petition by the Council last week, a judge with the Environmental Hearing Board halted drilling in 55 locations. On Friday, the order was lifted in three locations for safety reasons. They include one in Cumberland County, and two in Lebanon County.
Fractracker created the map above, which shows the locations of the spills. For more on our investigation of the spills, click here.
Correction: An earlier version of this story put the number of drilling mud spill locations at 61, reassessment of the data puts it at 42.
Construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.
Two ranking Democrats in Congress have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), to further investigate the practices of pipeline builder Energy Transfer Partners, which has merged with Sunoco Logistics, after spills and permit violations occurred on two of its major projects in three different states, including the Mariner East 2 pipeline here in Pennsylvania.
In a letter to FERC last Thursday, Congressman Frank Pallone Jr., and Washington state Senator Maria Cantwell, detail recent spills in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and criticize the company for misleading regulators by destroying an historic home in Ohio. StateImpact reported recently on a judge ordering ETP/Sunoco to stop construction on a valve station in West Goshen Township, where the company began building a valve station at a location the township had not agreed to.
For more on StateImpact’s investigation into Sunoco’s construction issues, listen here:
A stake in the ground marks a pipeline at Raystown Lake Recreation Area in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.
Sunoco has offered residents of West Whiteland Township, who had their well water tainted by a pipeline drilling accident earlier this month, lump sum payments in exchange for signing a release that would prevent them from suing the company with regard to any current or future damages related to impact to well water resulting from any current or future, pipeline construction.
The deal, obtained by StateImpact and published below, offers $60,000 to each household that decides to hook up to a public water supply. Included in that payment would be coverage for residential water bills for 20 years and a filtration system. The company would also cover the costs of hooking up the house to Aqua’s public water supply.
Those who decide to remain on their well water would get $11,000 up front, but retain the risk of any future impacts to their well water, including those that may occur from Sunoco’s construction of additional natural gas liquids pipelines through the area. Continue Reading →
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