MVP construction has been active recently

From the Press Release of Appalachian Voices, November 9, 2020

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals today sided with conservation groups and issued an immediate stay of Mountain Valley Pipeline’s stream and wetland crossing permits in southern West Virginia and Virginia. The groups, noting the company’s stated rush to resume construction and the serious environmental harms likely to result, had asked the court for the stay while it considered the merits of their challenge of the water-crossing permits issued by the Corps of Engineers.

The eight groups, represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates, filed a challenge of the Corps’ reissuance on September 25 of two “Nationwide Permit 12” approvals that would allow MVP, LLC to trench through some 1,000 streams, rivers, wetlands and other water bodies in the two states. The 4th Circuit had rejected the Corps’ first round of permit approvals in 2018.

As noted in the groups’ filings, Mountain Valley Pipeline’s operator recently told its investors that it intends to blast and trench through “critical” streams “as quickly as possible before anything is challenged.”

The court had issued an emergency stay October 16; today’s stay remains in effect until it rules on the groups’ petition to overturn the Corps’ water permits for the MVP project.

The groups filing the challenge include Appalachian Voices, Center for Biological Diversity, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Sierra Club, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, and Wild Virginia.

>>> Peter Anderson, Virginia Program Manager, Appalachian Voices:
“Communities along the pipeline route have been on edge these past several weeks as the company has moved in heavy equipment and started doing work, so we’re very glad the court pressed pause on this permit while the water-crossing issues are reviewed further.”

>>> David Sligh, Conservation Director, Wild Virginia:
“Once again, the court has shown that it sees the dire threat this dangerous and damaging project poses to our precious waters and vulnerable communities. Convincing a court to stay an agency decision requires plaintiffs to convince the judges that they have a good chance to prove their case after full review. Now, we look forward to doing just that — to show conclusively that the Corps of Engineers abdicated its duty to protect us and our resources.”

>>> Anne Havemann, General Counsel, Chesapeake Climate Action Network:
“The companies behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline have proven countless times that they are unfit to build this pipeline safely, with hundreds of violations and thousands of dollars in fines already. They’ve done nothing to prove that future construction won’t result in the same. We applaud the court for standing on the right side of history and issuing this stay.”

>>> Joan Walker, Senior Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign:
“The MVP has already doubled its timeline and budget, and it’s not even close to being finished. If they were smart, they would quit throwing good money after bad and walk away from this fracked gas disaster like Duke Energy and Dominion Energy did with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.”

>>> Jared Margolis, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity:
“This decision will help ensure the pipeline doesn’t keep posing catastrophic threats to waterways that people and imperiled species depend on to survive. Despite the project’s clear failure to comply with the law, Mountain Valley keeps pushing this climate-killing menace. We’ll continue working to ensure this destructive pipeline doesn’t poison waters and threaten communities along its route.”

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See also: ‘Less-than-ideal bedfellows’: Mountain Valley Pipeline payout to Appalachian Trail Conservancy prompts criticism, Elizabeth McGown, Energy News Network, October 5, 2020

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy expected scrutiny for accepting a $19.5 million gift from the MVP pipeline’s developers but believes time will show it was the right decision.

Mountain Valley Pipeline in Blue Ridge Mountains

From an Article by Ken Ward, Jr., Charleston Gazette-Mail, October 2, 2018

A federal appeals court on Tuesday vacated a key Clean Water Act permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, saying regulators lacked legal authority to “substitute” one kind of construction standard for another that was more friendly to the natural gas pipeline project.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a three-page, unanimous and unsigned order four days after hearing oral arguments in a case brought by the Sierra Club, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and other citizen organizations over federal approval of the 300-mile-long pipeline from Wetzel County, West Virginia, into Pittsylvania County, Virginia.

The order offered few details on the court’s reasoning and said its ruling would “be more fully explained in a forthcoming opinion.”

The court did say that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “lacked authority” to substitute one type of requirement for construction of pipeline river crossings for an existing standard that environmental groups had argued in court could not be used by Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The pipeline’s plans for river crossings that would take four to six weeks to complete — across the Elk, Gauley, Meadow and Greenbrier rivers — violated an existing 72-hour state time limit for such work, the environmental groups said.

Tuesday’s ruling came in one of several cases that the 4th Circuit heard arguments on last week over the MVP project and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, two major natural gas transmission lines the industry says are key for its continued expansion in the Marcellus Shale region of Northern West Virginia.

In August, a joint examination by the Gazette-Mail and the nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica outlined ways in which state and federal regulators were changing their rules to speed pipeline approval and construction when legal issues were raised about the projects.

“Rules and regulations have routinely been waived, changed and ignored to accommodate the pipeline with catastrophic effects to the region’s water, environment safety and property rights,” said Monroe County resident Maury Johnson, a member of several groups opposing the pipeline. “Simply stated, the agencies that are suppose to protect citizens from the overreach of a mega-corporation have failed. They haven’t done their jobs.”

MVP spokeswoman Natalie Cox said the company is disappointed with the court ruling and is “evaluating options” to continue construction activities that don’t include stream crossings.

Officials from the Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Environmental Protection did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday evening.