Bucks County jet fuel leak: Residents pack community meeting demanding answers
Jet fuel leak: Residents cram into community meeting demanding answers and cleanup
People living in one Bucks County community say they’re living in fear and concerned about their health after finding out a pipeline has been leaking jet fuel into their drinking water.
WASHINGTON CROSSING, Pa. - In the Bucks County township of Upper Makefield, where a jet fuel pipeline has been leaking underground, residents say they are living in fear.
It’s been more than a month since residents in the Mount Eyre neighborhood were told a broken underground Sunoco pipeline was leaking jet fuel, possibly for more than a year.
Community meeting:
Pointed questions and serious concerns were raised Tuesday night as residents packed a public meeting following a January announcement that a 70-year-old jet fuel pipeline from Delaware County to Newark, New Jersey, had sprung a leak underground and the fuel spilled into well water in some of the properties.
The pipeline is owned by Energy Transfer, the parent company of Sunoco.
Bucks County jet fuel leak: Energy Transfer ordered to install water treatment systems to affected homes
Energy Transfer has been ordered to install point-of-entry treatment systems to residents of a Bucks County community impacted by a jet fuel leak in the company’s 14-inch pipeline.
Dig deeper:
After an order from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Energy Transfer committed to providing residents with fresh drinking water for the foreseeable future as well as as free point-or-entry filtration treatment systems in their homes.
The company purchased one contaminated property so far.
They started remediation by drilling test holes and recovery wells in the neighborhood and they announced they’ve removed 65 gallons of leaked fuel and expect to clean up more.
Residents spoke out suggesting that the spill may be greater than Energy Transfer has detailed in its testing and data.
What they're saying:
"When we wake up in the morning, we wonder if we are going to smell jet fuel. We don’t know how far the contamination is and we don’t know where the plume is," Kat said.
Resident Kim Smith stated, "I’ll say it slow and calculated – that we are not going to go quiet and we will not go away."
Matt Gordon, with Energy Transfer, said, "I’m sorry you folks have to be here. We are committed to cleaning this up."
What you can do:
Residents with questions or concerns can obtain further information by contacting the resident hotline at 1-877-397-3383, by emailing uppermakefieldresponse@energytransfer.com, or by visiting the website at https://uppermakefield.incidentupdates.com.