Mariner East pipeline builder Energy Transfer is once again busy cleaning up the drilling mud from the Marsh Creek State Park area, writes Susan Phillips for the WHYY. 

Workers are trying to contain a new leak of what seems to be bentonite clay, which is used in horizontal drilling as part of the process of underground pipe laying. 

The whitish material was first spotted in a tributary of Marsh Creek by a resident on Feb. 15, two years after the completion of the cross-state natural gas liquids pipeline and three-and-a-half years after construction caused up to 28,000 gallons of drilling mud to enter Marsh Creek Lake. 

The August 2020 incident cost Energy Transfer over $4 million in penalties. 

According to an inspection report submitted by a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection employee on Feb. 16, the material was polluting the water at the same location as the 2020 incident. 

“It is possible that the remaining bentonite in the soil column at this previous inadvertent return location has been pushed to the surface by the rising water table,” states the report. 

Read more about the Mariner East pipeline cleanup efforts at Marsh Creek State Park in the WHYY. 

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