Blackstone’s New Pipeline Asset Is Wreaking Environmental Havoc

  • Federal filings show more violations than other big pipelines
  • Project will transport natural gas from Marcellus shale
Photographer: Andrew Burton/Getty Images
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In the energy business, it’s one of the biggest projects going today: construction of a 710-mile pipeline to transport natural gas from America’s most prolific shale deposit in the eastern U.S. to consumers in the Midwest and Canada. Even Blackstone Group LP has agreed to take a sizable stake.

But it holds another, more dubious, distinction. The Energy Transfer Partners LP pipeline has racked up more environmental violations than other major interstate natural gas pipelines built in the last two years, according to a Bloomberg analysis of regulatory filings during that period. And that’s all since U.S. regulators approved the $4.2 billion project in February.