Larger pipe size in steep terrain results in land slides and water pollution
News from the Allegheny Blue Ridge Alliance, Update #282, June 25, 2020
The U.S. Forest Service has been cautioned that it should not depend upon the reliability of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) developed in 2017 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as the agency develops a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the project.
The Forest Service announced on June 11 that it was developing a SEIS in response to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ vacating of the Forest Service permit for the ACP. While one portion of that opinion (e.g. authority to grant the ACP the right to cross the Appalachian Trail) was overturned on June 15 by the U.S. Supreme Court, several deficiencies in the permit for the ACP are required to be remedied by the Forest Service before it can issue the ACP a new permit.
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) stated in a June 22 letter to the Forest Service:
The Forest Service cannot continue to rely on FERC’s obsolete FEIS. The original analyses of potential alternatives to the project and the environmental consequences of its risky and costly preferred route are in question. Significant, new and relevant information related to endangered and threatened species, water quality, landslides and slope failures, environmental justice communities, and climate change demonstrates the original analysis is stale and incapable of allowing effective review of the environmental consequences of the project. Meanwhile, the energy landscape of the region the ACP purports to serve also has transformed dramatically, the costs of the project have ballooned, and its timeline has been pushed back.
A motion was filed with FERC on May 30 by SELC, Appalachian Mountain Advocates and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation asking that FERC conduct an SEIS for the ACP to address significant new information bearing on the project’s environmental impacts.
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New Biological Assessment Filed With FERC, But Not Made Public
News from the Allegheny Blue Ridge Alliance, Update #282, June 25, 2020
Dominion Energy Transmission, Inc. filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on June 22 a new Biological Assessment (BA) for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), but designated the information as “privileged and confidential” and thus not available to the public.
The new BA, which was developed in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), is a necessary step toward the issuance of a new Biological Opinion and Incidental Take Statement (BiOp/ITC) for the ACP, as required under the Endangered Species Act. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had previously twice vacated the BiOp/ITC for the ACP, which led to construction activity on the ACP being suspended in December 2018.
Southern Environmental law Center wrote FERC on June 24 requesting that a public version of the new BA be posted on the FERC docket within five business days (by June 30), in accordance with statutory requirements.
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