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Due February 8th.
Please send the following message to the email address below and sign the petition below. Please be sure to include your full name, phone number, and address in your email to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Subject: PAR000538058
Please require Energy Transfer Marketing & Terminals L.P. to address safety and environmental concerns with the Marcus Hook Terminal and submit more information in order for its proposal to renew the 10-year hazardous waste permit to be considered complete. Energy Transfer is seeking to renew this permit under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for the purpose of storing hazardous waste at the Marcus Hook Terminal natural gas liquids processing, storage and transfer facility in Marcus Hook, PA. Energy Transfer’s application for the RCRA hazardous waste (Part B) permit renewal is currently inadequate to ensure the safety of the surrounding community and should be disapproved by the DEP.
For ignitable waste, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) should reconsider the practice of allowing unsheltered 55-gallon drums in a hazardous waste storage area, considering direct sunlight and the temperatures during hot summer months in the Philadelphia region. This presents a risk of fire for ignitable hazardous waste.
The DEP should require a remediation plan to address extremely high concentrations of lead and iron found in the groundwater, identified in recent years through groundwater monitoring.
Because the high levels of metals in groundwater suggest similar potential contamination in soil, the DEP should also require the applicant to conduct sampling for lead in surface and subsurface soils in areas where concentrations of lead in groundwater are elevated.
Energy Transfer does not describe how it arrived at the closure cost of the container storage facility at the site, which stores approximately 2,170 tons of hazardous waste. These hazardous wastes include neurotoxins like lead and mercury, that are known to damage brain function, as well as carcinogens like benzene. The facility may also store 1,850 tons of “special handling wastes” like the known carcinogen asbestos and the probable human carcinogens polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), in some circumstances. RCRA requires that facilities storing hazardous waste provide “a detailed written estimate” of how much money it would cost a third-party to close the facility’s “container storage facility” including adjustments for inflation. Not only does Energy Transfer not provide evidence of how it arrived at the estimated cost of closing the facility in Attachment 11 of the application, it does not detail how it is accounting for inflation. RCRA requires operators to update closure costs every year to include inflation, and while this application was submitted in November 2022, the surety bond containing the cost figure is dated March 2021. DEP must require Energy Transfer to detail how it arrived at the estimated closure cost of the container storage facility.
There is also incorrect information in the application related to stormwater management at the facility. Energy Transfer is required to submit a “spill prevention, control and countermeasure plan” as a part of its RCRA Part B permit renewal application, and the application claims that the facility’s “combined wastewater/stormwater drainage system is the principal means of preventing potential oil leaks, spills, or other releases from reaching the Delaware River.” This statement is incorrect as Energy Transfer intentionally discharges industrial waste from the Marcus Hook Terminal directly into the Delaware River when Tank 101 becomes full (as evidenced in its NPDES permit). Tank 101 receives stormwater from the areas around storage tanks at the facility and this stormwater is regulated as industrial wastewater. When Tank 101 becomes full during precipitation events, it discharges industrial waste directly into the Delaware River. In order to complete this proposed permit renewal application, DEP should require Energy Transfer to develop a spill prevention, control and countermeasure plan that includes details about individual instances when Tank 101 has discharged to the Delaware during precipitation events, the frequency of discharges, and the pollutants contained in this industrial wastewater during each individual discharge.
In addition to these concerns, I have broader concerns regarding the need to store hazardous waste at the Marcus Hook Terminal. This RCRA Part B permit was initially issued as PAD980550594 in the early 1990s when the facility was a functioning oil refinery. In April 2019, the permit was transferred to apply to the facility which had since converted from an oil refinery to a natural gas liquids storage, processing and transfer facility. Now, as Energy Transfer is applying to renew this permit for the first time since the facility was repurposed in 2013, there is no explanation or justification for the continued storage of wastes associated with the facility’s over 100-year history as an oil refinery. Energy Transfer claims that “Wastes stored at the Container Storage Facility are wastes generated from Terminal operations and maintenance activities.” But page 136 of its application identifies the expected storage of Petroleum Refinery Primary Sludge (F037) and Petroleum Refinery Secondary Sludge (F038) at an estimated maximum volume of 300 tons each. There is a question as to why the facility is storing any petroleum refinery waste at all after the closure of refinery operations because the 2019 hazardous waste permit prohibits the storage of hazardous waste in containers for more than one year. Energy Transfer provides no further detailed information regarding which hazardous wastes stored onsite originated from the site’s historical operation as an oil refinery or its current operations as a natural gas liquids processing, storage and processing facility. Given the site’s location in an Environmental Justice (EJ) area designated by the DEP, DEP should require Energy Transfer to provide this information to ensure that Energy Transfer is not perpetually storing hazardous waste that originated from the previous use of the site as an oil refinery.
It is further concerning that the container storage area is approximately 60 feet away from the Middle Creek, which drains directly to the Delaware River. DEP should require Energy Transfer, at the very least, to clearly account for the origin of all waste stored at the site and to justify the continued storage of hazardous waste generated by a now defunct oil refinery.
Thank you for considering these comments.
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