Pennsylvania Residents Blame Jet Fuel Leak for Contaminated Drinking Water

Kirsten Wojnovich and her husband bought their dream home in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, 20 years ago. It was perfect until she turned on the kitchen tap one day in 2023.

Wownovich said, “It smelled like oil and tasted weird.” “It was very disconcerting.”

Wojnovich called Sunoco tunnel, which runs the Twin Oaks tunnel that is right next to their house. It goes underground from a fuel station outside of Philadelphia to Newark Terminal, which is close to the airport.

Sunoco looked in her water and said they didn’t find anything.

“[They said], ‘We’re so happy to tell you, there’s no oil, no gas, no propane, nothing in your water,'” he said.

She asked Sunoco Pipeline more about the reason and they said they didn’t know but it might be “some kind of bacteria” that has nothing to do with the pipeline.

But other neighbors also complained in the same way. Sunoco finally found a leak in the pipeline 16 months after Wojnovich made her first call. This happened only after the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection looked into it.

Wownovich said, “I feel like we’re being poisoned every day.”

People in the area don’t use water that is pumped in from a reservoir far away. Instead, they get their drinking and cooking water from wells that draw from deep aquifers.

This year, they finally got to open their well, and Wojnovich was shocked to see how much jet fuel was on top of it.

“It was 15 gallons…and it’s been gathering there since September 2023,” he said.

Sunoco took out that fuel, but Wojnovich says that Sunoco still sends workers to her well every day to skim off new fuel that is coming in.

She’s not by herself. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection says that at least 38 wells are now under threat.

A report from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration says that Sunoco Pipeline leaked more fuel than any other pipeline in the US in 2024.

“A pipeline company that doesn’t follow up as much would have found it sooner,” said Robert Hall, who worked for the federal government for decades making sure pipelines were safe. “They are not one of the best pipeline companies with regard to their management of their pipeline.”

The business that works with Sunoco, Energy Transfer, said in a statement that it had put in “advanced water filtration systems at no cost” and was “committed to the cleanup and restoration of the…neighborhood.” They did not say why it took so long to find the leak, though.

Sunoco Pipeline is being sued by Wojnovich. She doesn’t plan to stay in the neighborhood now that the pipeline is back up and running.

“Would you stay if there was 12 feet of jet fuel found on your well?” What Wojnovich said. “We feel unsafe.”