Mariner East Pipeline Technician Pleads Guilty - 77 Counts Of Falsifying Pipe Weld X-Ray Safety Docs [View all]

[hatrack]

An X-ray technician working on Energy Transfer Partners' Mariner East 2 pipeline project falsified documents about the safety of the line in western Pennsylvania 77 times. Joshua Springer, 42, who no longer works on the pipeline, pleaded guilty in a video hearing yesterday to a federal felony count of lying to the government. Under the plea agreement drafted in February, he faces up to six months in prison. Sentencing will be Aug. 24 before U.S. District Judge Marilyn Horan.

Mariner is a 350-mile line transporting highly volatile liquids such as ethane, butane and propane from the Marcellus Shale gas region to facilities near Philadelphia, primarily for conversion into plastics.

Springer copied an X-ray of an acceptable weld joining two pipes and used it to certify the quality of other welds on a portion of the pipeline in western Pennsylvania in 2017, said prosecutor Lee Karl. "He did this 77 times," Karl said, before the fraud was detected by a third-party audit.

Energy Transfer reported the problem to regulators after finding it in 2018 and reinspected all the welds in the section where he had been working. Company spokeswoman Lisa Coleman said the welds complied with regulations. She said the problems were discovered before the pipeline was put into operation.

EDIT

https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2020/06/23/stories/1063436471