Let's talk about Mariner East 2

I had a call from Tom Casey earlier this week.

Don't know who Tom Casey is?

You probably are not involved in the titanic battle over the Mariner East 2 pipeline project.

Casey, a West Goshen resident, has been one of the leaders in the effort to stop the project. He's been working on this for years, attending more meetings in more areas of the state than he can count.

Casey did not call to complain, which makes him a rarity these days.

I've been taking some heat for some of my opinions about the pipeline project - for instance saying I believe it is the biggest economic story in the region, and that despite the fact that the state has temporarily shut down construction on the pipeline, I still think it's going to become reality.

I have written several recent opinion pieces in which I have offered some of the so-called positives linked to Mariner East 2. Those have not been greeted entirely warmly by those who are dead-set opposed to piping hundreds of thousands of barrels of volatile materials through densely populated neighborhoods, right past schools and senior centers.

I understand their concerns.

I still think Mariner East 2 is going to happen. It's too far advanced, and involves way too much money.

Casey and I had a great discussion of the project, and the way we have covered it. He pointed out some of the effects the opposition already has achieved. Out in Chester County, several local government boards have been flipped by candidates who ran on a platform that included opposition to the pipeline.

One of the things the groups opposed to Mariner East 2 have pointed out consistently is how unhappy they are with the routing process the state used to allow Sunoco to put this pipeline basically contiguous to an existing pipeline. That's something Sunoco very much wanted because it will save them lots of money. For home owners now saddled with having this thing in their back yards, it's not so great. It now appears their voices have been heard, and that the state could actually create an authority to handle these siting issues.

And this week opponents of the pipeline picked up a huge victory when they convinced Delaware County Council to perform a risk assessment study on the pipeline plan.

You can read about that here.

Do I think it will stop Mariner East 2? No.

But I'm always willing to talk about it.

Thanks for the conversation, Tom.