Pipeline Controller

Eighteen months of contaminated wells in Upper Makefield. By Josh McKnight | The McKnight Team A crack in the 68-year-old Twin Oaks pipeline operated by Energy Transfer went undetected for 16 months, releasing jet fuel and associated chemicals into groundwater in Upper Makefield Township. Residents have lived with contaminated drinking water wells for 18 months. More than 200 now rely on company-funded home filtration systems. Bucks County well water testing is not a formality for anyone buying in this part of the county, and the Upper Makefield case shows how long a problem can run before anyone detects it. Where the cleanup and the oversight stand. Energy Transfer is only now testing a vacuum extraction system to pull contamination from the soil. Federal oversight has been thin. The Environmental Protection Agency declined jurisdiction, on the position that groundwater falls outside Clean Water Act protection. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which sits under the Department of Transportation, responded strongly at first and then softened its consent agreement with Energy Transfer. The agency has lost significant staff and initiated a record-low number of enforcement actions in 2025. That leaves the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection overseeing cleanup under a voluntary state program that critics say was never designed for a residential drinking water crisis. U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman are pushing for stronger pipeline safety legislation and federal funding to connect the affected neighborhood to public water. What Bucks County well water testing actually tells you. The standard well test is narrower than you probably assume. Coliform bacteria. Nitrates. Sometimes lead. That panel would not have caught this. Petroleum hydrocarbons and the compounds that travel with jet fuel require a separate test that nobody orders for you by default, which means Bucks County well water testing only covers what you specifically ask it to cover. Set that against what the numbers show right now. The average Bucks County home value is $530,927, up 3.3 percent over the past year, with homes going to pending in around seven days, per Zillow data through July 31, 2026. Zillow does not publish separate figures for Upper Makefield, so the county number is the closest verified benchmark. Seven days to pending. That is roughly how much time you get to decide what to test for. Why disclosure is the part most sellers get wrong. The Pennsylvania seller disclosure statement asks about the water supply and about known material defects. The operative word is known. A seller who has received notice of contamination, or who has a filtration system installed by a pipeline operator, has knowledge that must be disclosed. There is no ambiguity there. The harder cases sit at the edges. A property two miles from a known plume, never tested for hydrocarbons, with no notice from anyone. That seller may honestly have nothing to disclose, and you may still very much want to know. Disclosure law protects you against concealment. It does not substitute for your own due diligence. Pennsylvania is not an attorney state for residential transactions, which means this falls to the agent, the inspector, and the buyer to handle correctly. That is a real responsibility and it is not evenly met across the industry. Both things can be true. Most sellers in upper Bucks have nothing to hide, and a buyer is still right to test beyond the standard panel. If you have a well anywhere near the Twin Oaks corridor, tell your neighbor to test for hydrocarbons specifically. The routine panel will come back clean either way. What this means for you. If you are buying a well-water property in upper Bucks, order an expanded panel that includes volatile organic compounds and petroleum hydrocarbons, not just the standard bacteria and nitrate test. The additional cost is modest against the exposure. If you are selling, test before you list. A clean expanded panel in hand is a marketing asset, and it removes the single most effective negotiating tool a buyer has in a well-water transaction. Water source varies enormously street by street across this part of the county, and plenty of buyers do not know whether a property is on public water until the disclosure arrives. Newtown, immediately south of Upper Makefield, is largely on public systems and draws many of the same buyers. The market detail on its Newtown PA homes for sale page is a useful comparison point. Thinking about buying or selling in Upper Makefield or Bucks County? Let's talk. Frequently asked questions about Bucks County well water testing. How much does well water testing cost in Bucks County? A standard panel covering bacteria and nitrates is the least expensive option and the most commonly ordered. An expanded panel adding volatile organic compounds and petroleum hydrocarbons costs meaningfully more, and it is the one that would detect fuel contamination. Does contaminated well water have to be disclosed when selling? Yes, if the seller knows about it. The Pennsylvania disclosure statement covers the water supply and known material defects, and a filtration system installed by a pipeline operator constitutes knowledge that requires disclosure. Should I buy a home on well water in upper Bucks County? Well water is common and generally fine throughout the region. The decision turns on testing, not on avoidance. Order the expanded panel, review the results before contingencies expire, and price the outcome accordingly. What happens next with the Upper Makefield cleanup? Energy Transfer is testing a vacuum extraction system while the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection oversees the work. Federal lawmakers are seeking funding to connect the affected neighborhood to public water, which would end the reliance on filtration. Buying or selling in the Philadelphia suburbs? The McKnight Team helps families across Bucks, Montgomery, Philadelphia, and Delaware Counties. Real market data, straight answers, and a team that answers when you call.

Green Chile gas pipeline to Project Jupiter delayed to 2027. * By Alton Wallace | The Center Square * Aug 25, 2026 Updated 32 mins ago * 0 (The Center Square) - A proposed pipeline that would supply natural gas to a data center now under construction for Oracle and OpenAI in southern New Mexico has been delayed until at least early next year, according to a recent federal regulatory filing. In a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulatory filing on Friday, Dallas-based midstream giant Energy Transfer revised the 17.7-mile-long Green Chile pipeline's targeted in-service date from August 2026 to early 2027. The Green Chile Pipeline would cross federal, private, and state trust lands in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, to provide gas to a new power plant for "Project Jupiter," a 2.5-Gigawatt data center that would be located just south of Las Cruces. The proposed pipeline project lost its expedited federal status last month following challenges by the Sierra Club and other environmental advocacy groups. Energy Transfer had initially sought an approval for the pipeline under a federal "blanket certificate" program. This fast-tracked regulatory process allows pipeline developers to bypass case-by-case review for minor infrastructure projects without the extensive public comment windows or multi-year environmental impact reviews required of major interstate pipelines. The formal challenges by environmental watchdogs forced the commission to remove the Green Chile project's fast-track status, triggering a longer, more detailed federal review process. In addition to the challenges filed by environmental advocacy groups like the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Food & Water Watch, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff also objected to Energy Transfer's Green Chile pipeline application. In April, the commission's staff formally protested the request because Transwestern's representatives had not provided a copy of a finding by the New Mexico State Historic Preservation Office demonstrating the project's compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. On Sunday, the New Mexico Supreme Court temporarily halted a scheduled hearing on an air quality permit for Project Jupiter's on-site power network. Plans call for the campus to generate its electricity using natural-gas-powered fuel cells provided by Bloom Energy. Environmental groups contend that voting on the power system's emissions is premature because the pipeline proposed to transport the natural gas has not been allowed to begin construction. New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, a Democrat who is the party's nominee for Lieutenant Governor in the upcoming November 2026 general election, twice denied Energy Transfer's lease applications this year. Garcia Richard ruled in March and again in July that the placement of fossil-fuel pipeline infrastructure across a 0.63-mile stretch of state trust property is not in the best interest of New Mexico's natural resources. This forced Energy Transfer to find an alternative route to Project Jupiter. "In New Mexico, we truly mean it when we say 'water is life,'" Garcia Richard said in July. "We can't live without it and we know how precious and rare it is in our dry climate. Massive AI data centers like Project Jupiter can rapidly deplete critical natural resources like water and threaten ecosystems by generating shocking levels of emissions to power their operations." Following Garcia Richard's denials of the lease applications, an Energy Transfer spokesperson told Natural Gas Intelligence that the company continues "to work through the permitting requirements as we move this project forward." Several New Mexico lawmakers said in July they're considering introducing legislation that would impose a statewide moratorium on large-scale data centers. Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statewide moratorium on all new data center approvals and grid connections. Other states, like Georgia and Virginia, have recently moved to curtail tax incentives or impose stricter environmental reviews on hyperscale data center construction over concerns about strains on regional supplies of electricity.

Green Chile gas pipeline to Project Jupiter delayed to 2027. 1:20 PM on tuesday, August 25. Alton wallace. (The Center Square) - A proposed pipeline that would supply natural gas to a data center now under construction for Oracle and OpenAI in southern New Mexico has been delayed until at least early next year, according to a recent federal regulatory filing. In a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulatory filing on Friday, Dallas-based midstream giant Energy Transfer revised the 17.7-mile-long Green Chile pipeline's targeted in-service date from August 2026 to early 2027. The Green Chile Pipeline would cross federal, private, and state trust lands in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, to provide gas to a new power plant for "Project Jupiter," a 2.5-Gigawatt data center that would be located just south of Las Cruces. The proposed pipeline project lost its expedited federal status last month following challenges by the Sierra Club and other environmental advocacy groups. Energy Transfer had initially sought an approval for the pipeline under a federal "blanket certificate" program. This fast-tracked regulatory process allows pipeline developers to bypass case-by-case review for minor infrastructure projects without the extensive public comment windows or multi-year environmental impact reviews required of major interstate pipelines. The formal challenges by environmental watchdogs forced the commission to remove the Green Chile project's fast-track status, triggering a longer, more detailed federal review process. In addition to the challenges filed by environmental advocacy groups like the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Food & Water Watch, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff also objected to Energy Transfer's Green Chile pipeline application. In April, the commission's staff formally protested the request because Transwestern's representatives had not provided a copy of a finding by the New Mexico State Historic Preservation Office demonstrating the project's compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. On Sunday, the New Mexico Supreme Court temporarily halted a scheduled hearing on an air quality permit for Project Jupiter's on-site power network. Plans call for the campus to generate its electricity using natural-gas-powered fuel cells provided by Bloom Energy. Environmental groups contend that voting on the power system's emissions is premature because the pipeline proposed to transport the natural gas has not been allowed to begin construction. New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, a Democrat who is the party's nominee for Lieutenant Governor in the upcoming November 2026 general election, twice denied Energy Transfer's lease applications this year. Garcia Richard ruled in March and again in July that the placement of fossil-fuel pipeline infrastructure across a 0.63-mile stretch of state trust property is not in the best interest of New Mexico's natural resources. This forced Energy Transfer to find an alternative route to Project Jupiter. "In New Mexico, we truly mean it when we say 'water is life,'" Garcia Richard said in July. "We can't live without it and we know how precious and rare it is in our dry climate. Massive AI data centers like Project Jupiter can rapidly deplete critical natural resources like water and threaten ecosystems by generating shocking levels of emissions to power their operations." Following Garcia Richard's denials of the lease applications, an Energy Transfer spokesperson told Natural Gas Intelligence that the company continues "to work through the permitting requirements as we move this project forward." Several New Mexico lawmakers said in July they're considering introducing legislation that would impose a statewide moratorium on large-scale data centers. Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statewide moratorium on all new data center approvals and grid connections. Other states, like Georgia and Virginia, have recently moved to curtail tax incentives or impose stricter environmental reviews on hyperscale data center construction over concerns about strains on regional supplies of electricity.