Demand that Sunoco and Energy Transfer immediately shut down the pipeline while the extent of the leak is investigated.
Patch Staff
|Updated Fri, Feb 28, 2025 at 6:11 am ET
UPPER MAKEFIELD, PA — Residents blasted Sunoco and Energy Transfer Thursday night for a pipeline leak that has turned their quiet, bucolic Mt. Eyre Manor neighborhood into a nightmare.
During a special meeting held at the Sol Feinstone Elementary School, they demanded that Sunoco and Energy Transfer immediately shut down the pipeline while the extent of the leak is investigated.
The spill, confirmed on January 31, has polluted the groundwater and an unknown number of wells in the community.
“This is a crisis,” said Yvette Taylor, who chairs the Upper Makefield board of supervisors and who facilitated Thursday's meeting between Sunoco, Energy Transfer, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the state Department of Environmental Protection and township residents. “Our residents in Mt. Eyre and other impacted neighborhoods don’t have clean water. This is totally unacceptable.”
During the meeting, Energy Transfer and Sunoco officials again publicly apologized for the leak
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"This release happened, and it's our fault that it happened," said Energy Transfer's Joe McGinn. "This was not a third-party damage issue. We recognize that. We apologize for it."
He continued, "The focus and the goal of this is to restore the community to its original state. That's not going to come without disturbances along the way. There will be additional truck traffic, people in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, there's no way to get to where we need to be without that."
Energy Transfer discovered a leak in its Twin Oaks Pipeline on Jan. 31 in the Mt. Eyre Manor neighborhood and subsequently fixed the compromised section of pipe. Since then, it has begun testing wells, providing bottled water to residents, installing carbon filtration systems at homes in the community, and preparing a full mitigation plan.
The company reported that as of Thursday, it has conducted more than 350 water tests. Of those tests, results are back for 300. Six wells have so far tested above the statewide health and federal cleanup standards with four wells falling between the reporting and the cleanup level.
"We're committed to continue doing the water testing. We're already on our second round of testing," reported project manager Matt Gordon. "We're serious about this cleanup. We're going to send inspection tools through the pipeline. They are going to look at the pipe from the inside. We hear you and we are taking steps to clean this up and to ensure the pipeline continues to operate safely."
The extent of the spill and how long the pipe had been leaking before it was discovered remains under investigation.
(Jeff Werner/Patch)
Residents believe the pipeline has been leaking since November 2023 when several wells reported an odor of fuel. At that time, Sunoco officials said they found no evidence of a leak.
“When my well was finally inspected by Sunoco 12.35 feet of jet fuel was found on it,” Walker Road resident Kristine Wojnovich told the gathering.
She was one of a handful of residents who shared their experiences at the meeting. She also believes the pipe has been leaking since 2023.
“Four weeks after Energy Transfer finally located the pipeline jet fuel leak and said that it was repaired, you should know that my well is still accumulating jet fuel," she said.
The 105-mile long pipeline, which runs through Upper Makefield and parts of neighboring Newtown Township, transfers jet fuel from Sunoco’s Twin Oaks refinery in Delaware County to Newark Airport.
The meeting, held before a capacity crowd inside the Sol Feinstone Elementary School, began with the Upper Makefield Supervisors adopting a flurry of motions aimed at addressing the crisis.
The supervisors voted unanimously to authorize a clean water feasibility study; to engage an environmental specialist to oversee the township’s role and activity in the Sunoco Pipeline leak crisis; to hire special environmental counsel to advise the township during the crisis; and notifying the state DEP of its intention to be involved in the Act 2 process for the development of remediation and reuse plans for Mt. Eyre Manor.
“This pipeline is old,” said Taylor. "Sunoco’s technology cannot determine with certainty there are no other leaks. A 20 percent reduction (in the pipeline flow) is not enough. This pipeline needs to be shut down now.”
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