Recently, many questions have arisen about pipeline emergency planning and public awareness. We’d like to clarify some of the misinformation and answer some of the questions here.
Q: What safety information does Energy Transfer provide to the public?
A: Energy Transfer has a comprehensive Public Awareness Program that engages the community through a variety of communications methods, including targeted brochure delivery, face-to-face liaison meetings, school outreach, digital communications, and specialized trainings. We regularly mail safety brochures to our stakeholder audiences that explain how to identify and react to a pipeline emergency, based on industry standards provided by PHMSA. We have mailed more than 324,000 public awareness brochures to residents, businesses, churches, farmers, schools, public and emergency officials, excavators and others along our ME1 and ME2 pipelines since September 2018.
We provide information and training to the local emergency response departments in each county. This includes our MERO sessions and the co-hosted CoRE trainings. Additionally, we have held more than 100 emergency preparedness meetings with multiple stakeholder groups along our route (including emergency response departments and schools) since the project was announced in 2014. That includes meetings with over 40 schools that are in the vicinity of ME1 and ME2 to discuss emergency response planning. As has been the case since Sunoco first began operating in the Commonwealth decades ago, safety is our first priority: the safety of the community, the safety of the environment and the safety of our operations.
Note: The API standard for timing of Public Awareness mailings is as follows; mail to Affected Public (residents, farmers, businesses, schools, hospitals, churches, etc.) every two years, mail to Excavators and Emergency Officials annually, and mail to Public Officials once every three years.
Q: What information has Energy Transfer provided to the PA PUC about pipeline safety and emergency planning for the Mariner East pipelines?
A: We provided the PA PUC with our Facility Response Plan (FRP), which is a more detailed version of an Emergency Response Plan and includes all of our assets. We have also provided them with our Public Awareness Plan, which the PUC previously acknowledged are compliant with all appropriate rules and regulations. The Public Awareness Plan includes information on our emergency training programs and public communication platforms.
Q: What is the emergency evacuation plan for residents along Mariner East pipelines?
A: Evacuation plans are developed and coordinated by the appropriate local emergency response department as they are municipality-specific. In fact, the decisions regarding evacuations or shelter-in-place can only be ordered by government agencies. Our role in the process, as determined by state or federal regulations, is to provide emergency response departments with the proper training and information that will allow them to develop these plans, which we have done. Regardless of the type of incident—house fire, flood, pipeline or other, first responders are trained how to help people with different circumstances. Safety has always been our first priority: the safety of the community, the safety of the environment and the safety of our operations.
Q: What information is shared with first responders to inform them about accident response?
A: In our MERO sessions with local emergency responders we provide information about NGL products, pipeline operations and valve locations, along with a number of incident scenarios. We also provide information on possible emergency response procedures based on PHMSA’s Emergency Response Guidebook. It’s important to note that this guidebook is typically found in all public emergency response vehicles nationwide. First responders’ role is to assess community safety, secure the area, and initiate their emergency response plan which may include evacuation, shelter-in-place, or a combination of both. Each county develops its own county-specific emergency response plan.
We have and will continue to work with county emergency response departments to provide the information and training they need to develop the appropriate emergency preparedness plans for their areas. Additionally, local emergency response departments are able to request from PHMSA a copy of our Facility Response Plan (FRP). Our Facility Response Plan (FRP) is a more detailed version of an Emergency Response Plan and includes all of our assets.
