Stream crossings can mean stream contamination

From an Action Alert, Mountain Valley Pipeline, May 20, 2021

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is back at it, attempting to construct their pipeline through headwater streams, under rivers and across wetlands. Right now, the Army Corps of Engineers is reviewing a request to allow them to proceed with waterbody crossings. Read our full comments to the Army Corps of Engineers on the request.

If you’ve been following this story for the past 6 years, (read our recent blog on the current state of the MVP) you’ll remember that MVP’s stream crossing permit was vacated by the courts because they could not meet the conditions of the general permit, the Nationwide 12, which covers activities related to pipeline construction.

Now, MVP is applying for a more site-specific, individual permit in an attempt to complete construction through the 600 waterbodies that have yet to be crossed, which includes some of the biggest rivers, steepest terrain and most sensitive habitats.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is four years behind schedule, $3 billion over budget and has already incurred over 300 water violations and $2.7 million in fines between the two Virginias. It’s time to kick this ill-conceived project to the curb once and for all.

Tell the Army Corps of Engineers that this project is not in the public interest and they must deny MVP’s request.

The DeSmog Blog has a longstanding record of speaking out

From the Letter of Brendan DeMelle, Executive Director, DeSmog Blog, May 8, 2021

More than 40 cities have enacted bans on new gas infrastructure, but in the Pacific Northwest one company is trying a new tactic to head off climate policy. In recent months, Oregon utility Northwest Natural has been promoting its use of “renewable natural gas” — methane captured from places like landfills and repurposed into energy for homes. Its push to promote its green image comes on the heels of a contentious effort by officials to require carbon emissions reductions from the company. Read Nick Cunningham’s story.

Meanwhile, a new government report highlights federal failures to oversee offshore drilling. The report found that 97 percent of the time, existing regulations on environmental protection and cleanup are not enforced. More proposed rules to fix the broken regulatory system, however, are a distraction from the real issue of the government failing to hold the oil industry accountable, argues Justin Mikulka.

Finally, this week five environmental groups filed a lawsuit in a Montana federal court alleging that the way the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues permits for oil and gas pipelines nationwide violates some of the country’s cornerstone environmental laws. The lawsuit is the most recent round in a nearly decade-long battle, sparked under the Obama administration, over how regulators approach the environmental impacts from oil and gas pipelines and the extent to which the public gets a say in the permitting process. Sharon Kelly reports.

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmogblog.com.

Thanks, Brendan DeMelle, Executive Director, DeSmog Blog

P.S. Readers like you make it possible for DeSmog to hold accountable powerful people in industry and government. Even a $10 or $20 donation helps support DeSmog’s investigative journalism.

Pieces of power plant have gone into Ohio River

From an Article by Paula Christian, WCPO News 9, Cincinnati, April 26, 2021

NEW RICHMOND, OH — Clermont County residents were shocked in February when a smokestack from the retired Walter C. Beckjord power plant toppled into the Ohio River. But emails obtained by the WCPO 9 I-Team show that wasn’t the first time demolition crews left bricks, mortar and pieces of metal in the water.

Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has ordered contractors to clean up the mess it made in a river that provides drinking water for 5 million people and serves as the recreational play area for thousands of boaters, tubing children and jet skiers during the summer.

In an April 15 compliance letter to MCM Management Corp., the federal agency ordered the company to submit a clean-up plan by the end of April and remove an estimated 75 cubic yards of demolition debris from the river within 30 days of the plan’s approval.

This comes three months after Clermont County and Pierce Township officials first complained to state and federal agencies about waste debris in the river at Beckjord. “I do have huge concerns,” said Pierce Township fire Chief Craig Wright. “It’s not just Clermont County’s drinking water, it’s the city of Cincinnati’s and Hamilton County’s and Northern Kentucky’s. It’s much larger than just us.”

As the nation transitions away from coal, the colossal plants that burn it are being shuttered up and down the Ohio River. Ohio has more coal plant closures and retirement announcements than any other state in the nation, according to the Sierra Club.

This leaves more questions than answers in the communities left behind. Perhaps the biggest ones: How will the sites be cleaned up? And who is monitoring them? After a year of asking those very questions about Beckjord, Clermont County and Pierce Township officials said they still don’t have many answers.

“If we acquire a house and burn it down for training for our firefighters, I have to get more permits than what are needed to demolish and implode a power plant,” Wright said. Wright is worried about his drinking water. As the summer boating season approaches, he also fears curious boaters could be injured by falling debris that hangs over the river at Beckjord or strike debris hidden underneath the water.

“The big deal is, the same people who appear to be having these mishaps that are non-regulated are the same people that control a catastrophic amount of fly ash perched on the river,” said environmental attorney Dave Altman. “How much are you going to allow this company to get away with without the scrutiny that it deserves?” Fly ash is a by-product of burning coal, which the U.S. EPA states on its website contains contaminants such as mercury and arsenic.

Altman represents more than 100 New Richmond residents in a federal lawsuit filed in December 2019 against site owner Commercial Liability Partners. It argues that the developer breached a 1986 agreement with then Beckjord owner Cincinnati Gas and Electric that allegedly entitles residents to more information about contaminated waste disposal.

An attorney for Clermont County, Scott Doran, wrote to the U.S. EPA last December, asking for more oversight at Beckjord, which he described as a “danger to human health and the environment” because the coal ash is stored in unlined leaking ponds covering over 200 acres.

Some say the delayed cleanup of demolition waste in the Ohio River highlights a bigger problem about lack of oversight at the now-dormant plant, which is known as a legacy site because federal rules overseeing coal combustion residuals that took effect in 2015 do not apply.

But Commercial Liability Partners (CLP) said its contractors “followed best practices by a highly experienced demolition contractor and we worked collaboratively with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Ohio EPA and local emergency and transportation officials to ensure a successful demolition.”

‘Fully engaged with local officials’ — Built in the 1950s as a coal-burning giant, the plant pumped electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across Southwest Ohio for decades. In 2014, Duke Energy closed the Beckjord power plant, where more than 5 million tons of coal ash are buried in unlined, man-made ponds along the Ohio River.

Duke sold the 1,443-acre site in 2018 to Commercial Liability Partners, which is demolishing the plant with plans to build an industrial park, green space and port terminal. In a permit application to the Corps of Engineers, CLP’s demolition contractor, MCM Management, assured the agency that no debris would enter the Ohio River.

In an October 2019 application letter from MCM, vice president of demolition operations Aaron Fitch stated that a barge with a 15-foot-high backstop would be used to contain any falling debris, and that demolition would take place in the summer or fall, when the Ohio River is at a low stage.

Neither of those things happened. The contractor later determined that using a barge “would not be feasible,” and it is “not a required permit condition” to demolish the smokestack during low river stage, a Corps spokesman told WCPO.

CLP provided a statement that said, in part: “Our teams and our contractors have been fully engaged with local officials and regulators who have overseen major milestones and ongoing work at the site.” But emails WCPO obtained through a public records request reveal tense, and sometimes confrontational, exchanges between local officials and Beckjord’s contractors. They began when contractors announced via a March 27, 2020, email that demolitions would begin in early May at Beckjord.

“I will not support or sign off on this in any way unless several things were to happen,” Wright replied hours later on March 27, to Rhonda Reed, project manager for Devon Industrial Group, which is working on the Beckjord project. “There would need to be clear and open communication between all parties and partners involved, and that obviously hasn’t occurred up to this point.”

Follow-up emails show that local officials tried to get Devon to delay the demolition at Beckjord due to fears about COVID, in light of Ohio stay-at-home orders that closed all non-essential business. Officials even turned to Clermont County Prosecuting Attorney Ernie Ramos for help.

“The question remains, is there anything that the county can do to encourage/force CLP to hold off on any demolition work until the current emergency has ended,” Clermont County Emergency Management director Pam Haverkos wrote in an April 1 email to Ramos. “The Beckjord property has a class 1 dam that holds back coal ash. If breached, this could be an environmental disaster that we will not have the resources to respond to effectively.”

But Wright said he and other local officials quickly learned that they had virtually no authority over what happened at the Beckjord site. “It’s still technically classified as a public utility … so it’s exempt from building codes,” Wright said. “It’s exempt from a good portion of the fire code. The things that give me my authority and jurisdiction, they’re mostly exempt from.”

What he ‘didn’t expect to find’ — Emails from Clermont County building and permit officials confirm that demolitions at Beckjord are exempt from local jurisdiction, and emails from the state fire marshal’s office confirm that explosives permits were not needed because the explosives were stored in a Department of Transportation-permitted transport vehicle.

Beckjord contractors did provide Wright with safety and demolition plans, maps of road and water closures, and communication contacts. But emails show that Wright argued with contractors about notifying the public, allowing local officials to attend the demolition, and using a Clermont County Sheriff’s Department drone to check for curiosity seekers.

Pierce Township Fire Chief Craig Wright.The May 8, 2020, demolition of precipitators and turbine roof units at the plant went off smoothly, and for months afterward Wright said he had little contact with Beckjord contractors. Contractors initially planned to use explosives to demolish another portion of the plant for October or November 2020, but emails obtained by WCPO reveal that it was canceled because they could not secure explosives.

Then in January a Pierce Township trustee alerted Wright that residents were complaining about large amounts of construction debris in the Ohio River at Beckjord. Wright took his camera and zoom lens to the shores of Melbourne, Kentucky, directly across the Ohio River from Beckjord, where he took dozens of photos.

“I didn’t expect to find that kind of debris in the river itself,” Wright said. “They’re using equipment to push debris and stuff around the site so it was piled rather high on the side … but I honestly can’t say if it was pushed in there, or if it just slid down, or how it ended up there.” But Wright added that “it did not appear” contractors at Beckjord were actively trying to prevent debris from going into the Ohio River.

Wright sent those photos to local officials, who in turn sent emails to the Ohio EPA, U.S. EPA, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies, asking for help. “Attached are pictures of the debris being pushed into the Ohio River at the Beckjord plant,” Haverkos, the county’s emergency management director, wrote in a Jan. 19 email to the Ohio EPA.

What was the Ohio EPA’s response? “Agency staff went to the site on Jan. 22, confirmed that debris from the demolition was in the river. Ohio EPA followed up by contacting the Corps of Engineers and the demolition contractor about the issue,” according to an Ohio EPA spokesperson. But the debris was still not cleaned up. “I reached out to anybody and everybody that I could think of that could provide some help to us,” Wright said.

What’s in the water? More debris fell into the Ohio River on Feb. 26, when contractors used explosives to demolish the largest smokestack at Beckjord. The top portion of the stack fell into the river with a thunderous splash.

A Corps of Engineers spokesman said 75 cubic yards of debris fell into the river from that demolition, based on estimates provided by MCM. That’s 45,000 pounds, or 22.5 tons, or enough to fill 2.5 commercial construction dumpsters.

But Chris Wessels, owner of Interstate Stack and Chimney Services, believes much more debris from that smokestack is in the river than what MCM is reporting. “I would say almost the whole chimney is in that Ohio River,” Wessels said. “And whatever contamination was in that chimney that went in that river has probably been washed down the river by now.”

Wessels has been repairing and demolishing industrial and utility chimneys across the nation for more than 40 years. He said contractors invited him to the Beckjord site last spring to bid on the demolition of smaller steel stacks. Wessels did not end up performing work at Beckjord. But while on site he took photos of and asked questions about the largest concrete smokestack, in anticipation of possibly bidding on that job, he said.

“It never should have been taken down, ever, with explosives … because you can’t control where that chimney is going to fall,” Wessels said. He said a chimney of that size, standing at more than 400 feet tall, should have been taken down in a controlled piecemeal manner using scaffolding and a team of workers. But that would have been more expensive and taken several weeks.

Was the smokestack clean? “I am still very curious if that chimney was ever inspected before it was demolished,” Wessels said. “Because, typically, on the inside of that chimney, in the fly ash and based on the fuels that were burned, there’s contaminants.” Wessels asked if the largest smokestack had been cleaned, but he said contractors never gave him an answer.

Ohio regulations require that asbestos be removed from structures before demolition, and that did happen at Beckjord, according to an October 2019 application letter by MCM to the Corps.

But other materials, besides asbestos, are not regulated, according to an Ohio EPA spokesperson. So it is unlikely that public records exist that reveal whether the Beckjord smokestack contained coal ash or other pollutants, or if it was cleaned before it imploded and fell into the river, because contractors do not need to provide that documentation to regulators.

“The Beckjord power plant has been decommissioned, coal ash removed and asbestos abated,” Fitch wrote in a permit application to the Corps signed in February 2020, which did not contain test results. Based on documentation it received from the contractor, a Corps of Engineers spokesman said any debris in the Ohio River is simply “brick and mortar.”

But Altman, the environmental attorney, isn’t so sure. “You’ve got all the heavy metals just for starters – mercury and nickel and the whole list of heavy metals, depending on where the coal came from,” Altman said. “This would have had decades of such residues built up inside the stack.”

Federal law has banned companies from putting smokestacks into rivers since 1899, Altman said. “This was a violation of potentially the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act,” Altman said. “But nobody seems to care about this, at least at the federal level, or perhaps at the state level … that is just not the way that the government is supposed to work.”

Wessels would like to see more oversight and regulation in how contractors bring down tall chimneys using explosives, especially since so many utility plants will be demolished in the coming years. “If you think about the age of these chimneys being 60, 70, 80, 90 years old … and now that we’re changing the way that electricity is being generated,” Wessels said. “We’re seeing, I think, the beginning of what’s going to be a lot more of tall utility chimneys being brought down.”

Meanwhile Wright said, he will be honest when residents ask him about what’s going on at the Beckjord site. And that means saying he doesn’t know. “I have a duty to look out for the community and the residents,” Wright said. “We just don’t have the authority or the jurisdiction to truly oversee what’s going on down there … So far, we’ve not found any agency that truly does.”

Protesting MVP has been serious every day for over two years

From an Article by Scott DiSavino, Reuters News Service, September 8, 2020

U.S. pipeline company Equitrans Midstream Corp said on Tuesday it remains on track to complete the $5.4-$5.7 billion Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia early next year.

That comment follows a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to issue a new Biological Opinion on Sept. 4, which the project needs to resume construction.

Mountain Valley is one of several U.S. oil and gas pipelines delayed by regulatory and legal fights with environmental and local groups that found problems with federal permits issued by the Trump administration.

In February 2018 when Equitrans started construction of the 303-mile (488-km) pipeline designed to deliver 2 billion cubic feet per day of gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale, it estimated Mountain Valley would cost about $3.5 billion and be completed by the end of 2018.

“We look forward to resolving the few remaining permitting issues, resuming forward construction,” Equitrans said.

Equitrans has said it expects to receive new approvals soon from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that will enable it to finish building the last 8% of the project.

Analysts at Height Capital Markets said they expect FERC will lift its stop-work order in “coming days” and the Army Corps will reauthorize the project’s Nationwide Permit 12 to allow stream crossing “shortly thereafter.”

“We expect environmentalists and other opponents will challenge each of these permit decisions … within 1-2 weeks of issuance,” Height Capital Markets said, noting “FERC and FWS have had nearly a year to review the permit, so it should be relatively insulated from legal challenges.”

Other projects similarly held up include TC Energy Corp’s $8 billion Keystone XL and Energy Transfer LP’s Dakota Access crude pipelines, which are still involved in court battles.

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See also: Tree sitters mark two-year anniversary of pipeline protest, Joe Dashiell, WHSV News 3, Harrisonburg, VA, September 4, 2020

Dominion cancels Atlantic Coast Pipeline, sells natural gas transmission business

ACP pipeline right of way trees cut at highly sensitive location

PHOTO: Pipeline scene at Wintergreen — A path had been cleared for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline on this Blue Ridge Mountain slope at the entrance to Wintergreen resort, just below the project’s planned crossing beneath the Appalachian Trail.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is dead, abandoned by Dominion Energy and its partner, Duke Energy, ending a 600-mile natural gas project that would have cost at least $8 billion to complete.

Dominion and Duke announced Sunday that they have canceled the project in the face of mounting regulatory uncertainty caused by a federal court ruling in Montana that overturned the nationwide federal water quality permit the project relied upon to cross rivers, creeks and other waterbodies.

“We regret that we will be unable to complete the Atlantic Coast Pipeline,” Tom Farrell, chairman, president and CEO of Richmond-based Dominion, said in a bombshell announcement.

Dominion also announced that it is selling its natural gas transmission and storage business to Berkshire Hathaway Energy for $10 billion.

“For almost six years, we have worked diligently and invested billions of dollars to complete the project and deliver the much needed infrastructure, to our customers and communities,” Farrell said.

However, he concluded, “This announcement reflects the increasing legal uncertainty that overhands large-scenergy and industrial infrastructure development in the United States. Until these issues are resolved, the ability to satisfy the country’s energy needs will be significantly challenged.”

For opponents, the abandonment of the project represents vindication of grass-roots opposition that arose along the pipeline’s path.

“It’s all about the people,” said Nancy Sorrells, who helped form the Augusta County Alliance against the project in 2014 and represents the county in the Alliance of the Shenandoah Valley. “They knew it was wrong from start to finish and just never gave up.”

Rick Webb, a retired environmental scientist who helped lead the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition from his home in Highland County, said of Dominion, “They should have known better. It was a bad idea from the beginning. Dominion, with its ill-conceived project, has done a lot to strengthen the environmental community in the region,” Webb said. “Thank goodness for that.”

The grass-roots opposition also drove an aggressive legal strategy led by the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, which foiled the project by persuading the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to throw out numerous federal and state permits needed to complete the project.

Greg Buppert, who helped lead a wide-ranging legal battle against the project as senior attorney for the Southern Environment Law Center, was stunned by the announcement. “Wow!” Buppert said Sunday. “Wow.”

The law center, based in Charlottesville, won a series of victories against federal and state permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but lost a pivotal fight in the U.S. Supreme Court last month over a permit for the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains between Augusta and Nelson counties.

Dominion announced separately on Sunday that it is selling its natural gas transmission and storage business to Berkshire Hathaway by the end of the year.

Berkshire will take on $5.7 billion in debt from Dominion’s transmission and storage business — which does not reflect the parent company’s investment in the pipeline — and pay the company $4 billion, which will allow it to buy back stock to stabilize its earnings.

The sale includes more than 7,700 miles of gas pipelines and 900 billion cubic feet of gas storage. Dominion will keep a 50% interest in the Cove Point liquefied natural gas terminal on the Chesapeake Bay, but Berkshire will receive a 25% interest in the facility and operate it.

Farrell said the deal would allow the company to focus on its electric utilities in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as local gas distribution companies in the Carolinas, West Virginia, Ohio and Utah.

He said the company plans to invest $55 billion over the next 15 years in technologies to reduce emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming, retire fossil fuel power plants, and develop sources of renewable natural gas, including animal waste.

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See also: Atlantic Coast Pipeline faces doubts — As the cost of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline soars, renewable energy is the better option for NC, Ned Barnett, Raleigh News & Observer, March 16, 2020

There is no environmental justice in such a large diameter pipeline on extremely steep mountain terrain

Update from the Southern Environmental Law Center, June 15, 2020

Washington, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision that limited the U.S. Forest Service’s authority to issue a permit to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). The original ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals stated the Forest Service lacked authority to grant approval for Dominion and Duke Energy’s pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail on federal land. The Fourth Circuit also vacated the Forest Service permit on other grounds not addressed by today’s decision, and the pipeline still lacks that permit in addition to several other approvals required for construction.

“While today’s decision was not what we hoped for, it addresses only one of the many problems faced by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. This is not a viable project. It is still missing many required authorizations, including the Forest Service permit at issue in today’s case, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will soon consider the mounting evidence that we never needed this pipeline to supply power. It’s time for these developers to move on and reinvest the billions of dollars planned for this boondoggle into the renewable energy that Virginia and North Carolina customers want and deserve,” said DJ Gerken, Southern Environmental Law Center Program Director.

The Supreme Court’s decision comes at the same time that the purported need for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, proposed in 2014, is receiving renewed scrutiny, as states are steering their energy economies away from fossil fuels. In March, Dominion Energy told Virginia regulators that the build out of new gas-fired power plants is no longer “viable” in the state, and the Virginia Clean Economy Act signed into law in April requires that the utility shut down all of its existing gas plants by 2045. North Carolina’s Clean Energy Plan calls for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants of 70% over 2005 levels by 2030 and total carbon neutrality by 2050.

“It’s been six years since this pipeline was proposed, we didn’t need it then and we certainly don’t need it now,” said Dick Brooks of the Cowpasture River Preservation. “Today’s decision doesn’t change the fact that Dominion chose a risky route through protected federal lands, steep mountains, and vulnerable communities.”

“This pipeline is putting our farmlands, our water and the livelihood of Virginians in jeopardy,” said Nancy Sorrells with Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley, “And all for a pipeline that isn’t even in the public interest of Virginians.”

Meanwhile, the exorbitant price tag for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline continues to climb because of Dominion’s insistence on a harmful and risky route. Under these circumstances and at a time when the region is moving rapidly to 100% renewable energy, it’s unreasonable to expect customers to pay for this obsolete $8 billion fracked gas pipeline.

“With the ACP still lacking 8 permits, this decision is just plugging just one hole on a sinking ship,” said Kelly Martin, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign. “Nothing in today’s ruling changes the fact that the fracked gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a dirty, dangerous threat to our health, climate and communities, and nothing about the ruling changes our intention to fight it. From the day the ACP was proposed, the smart investment for Dominion and Duke would have been clean, renewable energy sources, and with the project billions of dollars over budget, that’s even more true today. Despite this ruling on one narrow question, economics, common sense, and public opinion are still squarely against the ACP.”

Among the permits in question for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are:

@ — Endangered Species Act permit (Biological Opinion) from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

@ — Special use permit and right-of-way grant from the U.S. Forest Service

@ — Right-of-way permit from the National Park Service

@ — Virginia air pollution permit for the Union Hill compressor station

@ — Four Clean Water Act authorizations from the Army Corps of Engineers for Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina

@ — The Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s central permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is under review in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and arguments are expected later this year. The case will determine if FERC correctly determined that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was needed to fuel gas-fired power plants when it approved the project in 2017.

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About the Southern Environmental Law Center

For more than 30 years, the Southern Environmental Law Center has used the power of the law to champion the environment of the Southeast. With more than 80 attorneys and nine offices across the region, SELC is widely recognized as the Southeast’s foremost environmental organization and regional leader. SELC works on a full range of environmental issues to protect our natural resources and the health and well-being of all the people in our region. For more info see the following: www.SouthernEnvironment.org

About the Sierra Club of the United States

The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3.8 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person’s right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.

Roanoke River varies with the seasons

From an Article by Jeff Sturgeon, Roanoke Times, June 1, 2020

Builders of the Mountain Valley Pipeline can bore under the Roanoke River to set the pipe at that location instead of an earlier plan to dam the water and dig a trench, energy regulators say.

Mountain Valley cannot currently undertake the river crossing in eastern Montgomery County, however, because of a lack of federal authorizations. Construction began in 2018 but has been on hold since fall.

On May 20, Mountain Valley asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval to change methods for its planned crossing of one of the region’s major rivers. Its application described the creation of pits on opposite sides of the river where the pipeline route and river intersect in Lafayette. One pit would be nearly 31 feet deep, the other nearly 22 feet. A crew would bore horizontally 316 feet and install the 42-inch pipe directly behind the boring machine, passing at least 6 feet beneath the river bottom, the application said.

The project could be completed in 90 days, the filing said.

Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox, asked for the company’s reason for the change, said variances to use boring “for specific crossings” would allow Mountain Valley to “complete final restoration work for larger sections” of the pipeline’s right of way.

In giving its consent May 27, FERC said the decision to bore rather than block the river and lay pipe in a trench “will result in a reduction in impacts on aquatic resources by avoiding impacts to the stream bank and channel.”

The earth in that location is dominated by shale and limestone with a high percentage of gravel and cobbles, conditions that will require the application of clay solution to lubricate the cutting process, the application said. MVP plans to obtain 500,000 gallons of water from a municipal source and not use river water. MVP said it “does not anticipate conditions” that would cause drilling fluids to be released into the environment.

The drilling fluid was described in the application as non-petroleum based, non-hazardous and “non-toxic to fish” at the low concentrations contemplated by MVP’s plan, the application said.

Roanoke area citizens realize MVP is an insult to the environment

The obstacles blocking progress by MVP include a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to revisit an earlier ruling that found that the project would not harm endangered species. Permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cross streams and wetlands is also outstanding, though Sligh said a decision to bore would make having that permission unnecessary for the Roanoke River crossing. Finally, a permit needed to cross the Jefferson National Forest is under review by the U.S. Forest Service.

42 inch Mountain Valley Pipeline is larger than previous pipelines, probably too large for the steep terrain and many stream crossings

From an Article by Laurence Hammack, Roanoke Times, April 24, 2020

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is still targeting a completion date of late this year, a spokeswoman said Friday, despite reports of the suspension of a nationwide program needed to grant a key permit it lacks.

Last week, a federal judge in Montana vacated a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline to cross streams and wetlands in a decision that also applied to other projects, including the controversial natural gas pipeline being built through Southwest Virginia.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — which approves the permits on a general basis for pipelines, utility lines and other construction work that must cross a water body — has suspended the process in light of the court ruling.

Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox said the company was aware of comments from the Corps about its so-called Nationwide Permit 12, which the AP attributed in part to emails it had obtained.

“We are awaiting further developments on the Montana federal court case … to understand any potential impacts on the MVP project,” Cox wrote in an email, adding that the company still was aiming to complete work on the 303-mile pipeline by the end of the year.

Mountain Valley was originally slated to be done by late 2018, and delays caused by legal challenges from environmental groups have in large part caused its estimated price to soar from $3.7 billion to as much as $5.5 billion.

“Continued delays will further erode the case for completing the MVP,” said Thomas Hadwin, a retired gas and electric utility executive from Waynesboro who is opposed to the project.

While Mountain Valley officials have said the pipeline is 90% done, “this is probably one of the biggest outstanding issues for them,” he said.

Hadwin said it was difficult to say whether the joint venture of five energy companies would abandon the project at this late stage, as opponents hope.

“The more money they put in, the harder it is to say, I’m going to give up,” he said. “I think that most board members would say, we’re so far in, let’s keep going.”

Larry Liebesman, a senior adviser for the water resources consulting firm Dawson & Associates in Washington, D.C., said he was not surprised to learn of the Corp’s suspension of its permitting process for stream and wetland crossings.

“My read of it is they felt it was important to abide by the court order, which in effect was a nationwide injunction against use of the Nationwide Permit,” he said.

It was not clear Friday how long the suspension might last. A spokesman for the Army Corps referred questions to a counterpart at the U.S. Justice Department, who had not responded by 6 p.m. Friday.

Environmentalists have long decried the Nationwide Permit process, which takes a blanket approach for projects the Corps determines will not cause significant harm to natural resources. An individual analysis of each stream crossing is needed to fully evaluate a pipeline’s effects, they say.

“Permit applications for projects like MVP would — and should — fail if project-wide impacts were more thoroughly examined,” said Russell Chisholm, co-chair of the anti-pipeline group Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights.

Over the past two years, Mountain Valley has been cited repeatedly by regulators in Virginia and West Virginia for noncompliance with required measures to control erosion and sedimentation. Muddy runoff from construction sites along steep mountain slopes has carried sediment into nearby streams.

Mountain Valley has blamed much of the problem on heavy rainfall in 2018, and says it is working to have three sets of suspended permits — including the one to cross more than 1,000 streams and wetlands — restored in time to resume work by the late spring or summer.

An original water-crossing permit granted to Mountain Valley more than two years ago was set aside by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The company had applied for a new approval and was waiting on a decision when the recent court decision came down.

Because the Nationwide Permit is also used by power lines and other utility work, critics say the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris goes too far.

The Justice Department is likely to ask the judge to narrow the scope of his ruling, and to then appeal if he does not, according to Height Capital Markets, an investment banking firm that has followed Mountain Valley. “The universe of the kind of projects that would be affected is incredibly broad,” Liebesman said.

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See also: Dominion Energy: Significant new natural gas generation not viable, NBC News 29, April 8, 2020

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Dominion Energy Virginia recently told state regulators “significant build-out” of natural gas-fired power plants is no longer viable because of renewable energy legislation lawmakers passed earlier this year.

The disclosure came in a filing with the State Corporation Commission several weeks before Dominion has to file its integrated resource plan, or IRP, a long-range planning document that describes how the utility will generate power to comply with regulations and meet customer needs.

The company’s critics called it the latest development to raise questions about why the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the approximately $8 billion multistate natural gas pipeline the utility’s parent company is spearheading, is needed.

When Dominion proposed the pipeline in 2014, it was planning to build several thousand megawatts of additional natural gas generation in Virginia, said Will Cleveland, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

‘ROW’ for MVP in Roanoke County, VA, in July 2018

Letter of Emily Satterwhite, Virginia Mercury, April 15, 2019

In May 2018, Mountain Valley Pipeline confessed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that its plan for stream crossings along its proposed 303-mile fracked gas pipeline had been based on “theoretical desktop analysis” that “did not take site specific constructability issues (elevations, terrain and workspace) into account.”

From May to September, MVP, FERC, and the Army Corps of Engineers communicated with one another about this confession. We only know about this correspondence thanks to the work of a community-based watershed group in West Virginia, which in December filed a letter with FERC outlining its findings from a Freedom of Information Act inquiry.

Before then, all we knew was that on September 24, 2018, MVP requested a project-wide Variance-006 that would allow pipe to be buried more shallowly on either side of streambeds and that the variance was granted the very next day.

In requesting a variance, MVP admitted that if it followed its original vertical scour and lateral erosion plan, construction “would pose increased environmental or landslide risks or be unsafe or impractical due to terrain or geology.”

FERC staff approved the massive changes, essentially allowing MVP to fabricate its own construction standards on the fly, despite reservations from within both FERC and the corps. Documents indicate that Chris Carson, a corps project manager for the Huntington district, cautioned that “no information is provided indicating whether any of the changes would result in additional discharges of dredge or fill material into waters of the United States.”

FERC Senior Consultant Lavinia DiSanto directed MVP to provide a “site specific scenario … for each location that would receive mitigation.” MVP Design Engineer Ricky Myers dismissed DiSanto’s directive as “excessive” and insisted that MVP would abide by its own newly revised rule: they would build as they saw fit and then consult with a monitor after construction.

FOIA documents give no indication that MVP or FERC informed the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection or the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality regarding the MVP—FERC-corps communications about the variance prior to publication on the FERC docket.

Collusion between FERC staff and MVP enables ongoing reckless construction of a massive project that continues to negatively affect water quality and the well-being of people and communities.

If MVP is able to obtain a new Army Corps of Engineers permit (its previous permit was vacated by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals) and allowed to resume construction in waterways, MVP will do so under its own rogue standards.

FERC commissioners should mandate a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) that includes the site-specific analysis requested by FERC contractor DiSanto. Virginia’s attorney general and State Water Control Board must issue a stop-work order until such time as the SWCB can assess the effects of variance-006 upon construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and demand that MVP to do the stream-by-stream homework that Virginia’s DEQ should have required in the first place.

>>> Emily Satterwhite is an associate professor and director of Appalachian studies at Virginia Tech.