Giving Compass' Take:

• Emily Pontecorvo reports that because of COVID-19 safety measures, state are canceling public meetings, denying citizens their chance to learn about and respond to policies including pipeline development. 

• Is your local government using COVID-19 to circumvent democratic practices? How can funders help to create safe ways for the public to have input on decisions? 

• Learn about making public policy decision commenting available online.

On April 14, Rosemary Fuller had planned to speak at a public hearing held by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) about a natural gas pipeline that will run 150 feet from her home in the suburbs west of Philadelphia. It would be the first of three upcoming hearings to discuss new permits that Sunoco, the company that owns the pipeline, had applied for to modify its drilling technique and route in certain areas.

Construction of the pipeline, which is called Mariner East II, has been riddled with problems since it began in 2017. Fuller hasn’t been able to drink water from her tap since July 2019, when she discovered the drilling had contaminated her well. She can no longer walk her dogs around the loop at a nearby park — part of it was closed off after drilling opened up four sinkholes there. To date, Sunoco has paid more than $13 million in penalties for Mariner East–related construction violations, and the pipeline is the subject of three criminal investigations. Fuller and six others who live near the pipeline are involved in a lawsuit against Sunoco to try and halt the project entirely because of its threat to public safety.

Some of these problems led Sunoco to request modifications to its permits. At the upcoming public hearings, Fuller and other residents whose lives have been upended by the construction hoped to ask about the risks associated with the new plan and get a clearer sense of Sunoco’s timeline.

But now, because of COVID-19 safety measures, all three hearings have been canceled.

“We all had questions that were never addressed or answered. In a public hearing, we would get up and raise those issues and concerns, and the DEP would be sitting there and have to respond,” Fuller told Grist. “It’s vitally important.”

The DEP has not announced plans to reschedule the meetings or to prolong the permitting process. Meanwhile, even after Governor Tom Wolf ordered work on the pipeline to stop during the crisis because it’s not an essential business, Sunoco sought and won a waiver to continue construction.

Read the full article about states canceling public meetings by Emily Pontecorvo at Grist.