Public health in Pennsylvania

• Emily Previti/PA Post
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  Emily is a reporter for WITF who’s been covering voting and elections since July 2019 as part of her former role with statehouse accountability news organization PA Post. She was the senior reporter for statewide public media collaboration Keystone Crossroads. Previously, she covered city hall for PennLive/The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), was a watchdog and city hall reporter at The Press of Atlantic City and reported for the Northwest Herald. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
  
  See other articles by Emily Previti for WITF.

 Scott Blanchard / StateImpact Pennsylvania

The map shows the Mariner East 2 pipeline's path across 17 Pennsylvania counties on its way to the Marcus Hook industrial complex in Delaware County, where the natural gas liquids it carries will be shipped overseas to make plastics. The map was built using state Department of Environmental Protection shapefiles of the route for which DEP issued permits. The line extends west into Ohio.

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Air, water and power

Scott Blanchard / StateImpact Pennsylvania

The Mariner East 2 pipeline begins in Ohio, then cuts through 17 Pennsylvania counties on its way to the Marcus Hook industrial complex in Delaware County, where the natural gas liquids it carries will be shipped overseas to make plastics.

• A sinkhole opened up in Middletown, Delaware County, earlier this week along the route of Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 pipeline — within one day of the company restarting its Mariner East 1 pipeline after a months-long shutdown stemming from a sinkhole in Chester County. Jon Hurdle’s on the story for StateImpact Pennsylvania.

• PFAS are chemicals that were once used in products including fire-fighting foam, clothes and non-stick cookware. But “the chemical bonds that give PFAS their heat, oil and water-resistant qualities are so resilient they don’t break down in the environment — or in the human body,” writes PennLive’s Wallace McKelvey in this story. It’s about one family’s experience testing their water for the toxin that isn’t monitored in Pa., despite years having passed since contamination was discovered in water supplies throughout the state.

• Air quality is getting better in many areas of the U.S. — but the reverse is true in some Pa. cities with pollution levels already among the worst nationally. WESA took a closer look at Pittsburgh’s numbers in this story; the conversation on WITF’s Smart Talk had a statewide focus, though the midstate’s air is dirtier than in most other regions of the commonwealth.

Best of the rest

Min Xian / WPSU

Panelists discussed potential solutions to the rural broadband crisis as a part of the Influencers Project hosted by the Centre Daily Times at the State Theatre.

• Pennsylvania is lagging behind the rest of the nation on broadband access, mainly because of availability shortfalls in rural regions. A panel discussed potential solutions in State College earlier this week. Min Xian attended and has this story for WPSU.

• As of this week, Pennsylvania will no longer suspend driver’s licenses of people convicted of offenses that have nothing to do with driving, according to this Associated Press report.

• State officials are starting to audit Medicaid-funded providers at random. They’re picking just a handful at a time, but the intent is to put “thousands” more on notice that they need to be accountable for their spending and might have to demonstrate that to auditors. WITF’s Capitol Bureau Chief Katie Meyer details the initiative here.