Punxsutawney Phil has relatives in West Virginia who care!

>>> Received on January 31 at 8:41 AM

Make sure you join us Thursday, February 2nd, for a special #GroundhogsDay webinar on the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Right now, there are two permits from federal agencies pending approval and you have the opportunity to comment!

Learn how you can send your comments. This webinar is set for 12:00 Noon! (See the recording below.)

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RECORDING ~ Mountain Valley Pipeline Lunch and Learn February 2, 2023 – WV Rivers Coalition

ACCESS WINDOW~ https://wvrivers.org/2023/02/mvpfeb2023/

YouTube Recording ~ https://youtu.be/42d-68a1-tc

Two permits from federal agencies are pending approval and you have the opportunity to comment on them. This February 2nd webinar discussed how you can craft and submit your comments.

1. You can comment on the US Forest Service permit approval until February 6, through this webform.

2. You can comment on the Army Corp of Engineers permit until February 10, through this webform.

Thank you for your participation at this important time!

Are you gonna stand up for justice and the earth?

From an Article by Noah Sachs, American Prospect, August 14, 2019

The question of the trail’s ownership looms large in a case that may be headed to the Supreme Court. The answer could determine the fate of natural gas megaprojects on the East Coast.

Protesters gather at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Harrisonburg office to speak out against the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines.

Hiking north on the Appalachian Trail from Reeds Gap in Virginia, my teenage daughter and I come to a clearing. We’re at the Three Ridges Overlook, taking in the view of the Rockfish River Valley undulating to the east. Piney Mountain, blanketed in a green canopy of oaks and poplars, stares back at us from across the divide. This tranquil section of the iconic trail is the subject of a four-year legal battle that landed in June at the Supreme Court. It’s the spot where Dominion Energy wants to route the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), a $7.5 billion, 600-mile, 42-inch-diameter pipe that will carry fracked natural gas from the depths of the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia. The pipeline would run up and over several mountain ranges to the Virginia coast and to eastern North Carolina.

The stakes are high. The lawsuit over this section of the Appalachian Trail could determine the fate of some of the largest natural gas deposits in North America. In a landmark decision last December, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond axed the project—for now. That court found that the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine is part of the National Park System, blocking federal agencies from authorizing a pipeline crossing. The astonishing decision upended the U.S. natural gas industry and also jeopardizes other pipeline projects with proposed routes across the trail.

Whether the pipeline construction ever goes forward ultimately hinges on the question of who has authority over the Appalachian Trail. If the Supreme Court declines to hear Cowpasture River Preservation Association v. U.S. Forest Service (an announcement is expected this fall), then the Fourth Circuit decision will stand, and the ACP will likely be doomed unless it gets a congressional exemption or Dominion chooses a costly new route. Both Dominion and the Trump administration petitioned the high court to hear the case, with Dominion charging that the Fourth Circuit turned the trail into “an impregnable barrier” that locks up abundant natural gas in the Midwest. (Full disclosure: I’m on the board of an environmental group, Virginia Conservation Network, that has opposed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but VCN is not a party to any of the pipeline litigation.)

Yet an even more fundamental problem posed by this latest generation of pipeline projects is not the exact point where they cross the Appalachian Trail, but whether they should be built at all. Once these investments in fossil fuel infrastructure are made, developers have every incentive to use the pipelines for their whole useful life (about 80 years), which would throw greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and exacerbate the climate crisis.

See the complete article here:

Can the Appalachian Trail Block a Natural Gas Pipeline? - The American Prospect, August 14, 2019

Holden Dometrius arrested on Little Mountain near Lindside, WV

From an Article by Laurence Hammack, Roanoke Times, April 24, 2019

A state regulation that delayed a key part of work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline — the crossings of more than 1,000 streams and wetlands in the two Virginias — has been revised in a way likely to benefit the project.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection wrote in a letter Wednesday to federal regulators that it has modified about 50 conditions to permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

One of the conditions was that the pipeline needed to be built across four major rivers in West Virginia within 72 hours. The Army Corps improperly bypassed that rule when it issued what’s called a Nationwide Permit 12 to the natural gas project, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in throwing out the authorization in October.

Although several more steps need to be taken before water body crossings can resume, a revised condition doing away with the time restriction in certain cases was seen as a victory for Mountain Valley.

However, complications from another court challenge involving a different pipeline in Virginia led one of the five partners in the joint Mountain Valley venture to say this week that completion of the project by the end of this year now “appears unlikely.”

Rebecca Kujawa, chief financial officer of NextEra Energy Inc., made her comments in a report on first quarter results posted to the company’s website.

Construction of Mountain Valley, which began last year, is expected to ramp up in the coming months following a winter lull, Kujawa said. But she expressed concerns about a 4th Circuit decision last year that prohibited the Atlantic Coast Pipeline from crossing the Appalachian Trail.

The Mountain Valley pipeline would also cross the scenic footpath, and backers worry that the project could be jeopardized by the Atlantic Coast ruling. “We are continuing to work through options with our partners and will provide a further update in the near future,” Kujawa said.

Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for Mountain Valley, said Thursday that there have been no announced changes to the company’s most recent goal of a late 2019 completion date.

“However, in light of the ongoing permit challenges, the window to achieve these targets is becoming more narrow,” she wrote in an email. “The team has been pursuing options and alternatives that would address the outstanding issues and, if realized within the next few months, would allow for” completion late this year.

When work on the 303-mile pipeline began a year ago, plans were to have it done by late 2018. As for the Nationwide Permit process, Cox said, the next step will be for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review the modified conditions from West Virginia. Then the Army Corps will do the same.

Pipeline opponents were quick to react to the move, staging a protest early Thursday morning in which a man chained himself to equipment along the pipeline’s construction right of way in Lindside, West Virginia.

“To hell with your permits,” read a banner attached to a piece of welding equipment to which 22-year-old Holden Dometrius had locked himself, according to a news release from Appalachians Against Pipelines. After several hours of blocking work, Dometrius was removed by law enforcement officials.

The organization, which has been affiliated with more than dozen such blockades in West Virginia and Southwest Virginia, said the pipeline “endangers water, ecosystems, and communities along its route, contributes to climate change, increases demand for natural gas (and therefore fracking), and is entrenched in corrupt political processes.”

A clerk in the Monroe County Magistrate’s Court said Dometrius faces a felony charge of threatening terrorism and three misdemeanors: trespassing, obstruction and tampering with equipment. Dometrius, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was being held in jail in lieu of an $8,000 cash bond Thursday afternoon, the clerk said.

In October, the 4th Circuit vacated a Nationwide Permit 12 issued for a portion of the pipeline running through West Virginia. A legal challenge brought by the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations asserted that the Army Corps overlooked a requirement, imposed by the state’s environmental agency, that work on four major river crossings be completed within 72 hours to limit potential environmental harm.

Mountain Valley has said that digging trenches across the river bottoms for its 42-inch diameter pipe would take four to six weeks.

Two similar stream-crossing permits — one for Southwest Virginia and another for a second part of West Virginia — were suspended by the Army Corps days after the court ruling.

But by the time of the court’s opinion, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection had already initiated changes to address the court’s concerns. The department invited public comments in August — after the court had issued a stay to stream crossings in response to the Sierra Club’s lawsuit, which was later lifted — on a number of revisions to state conditions to the Army Corps’ permits, including one that removed the 72-hour time restriction in certain cases.

Concerns by regulators date back to Mountain Valley’s original plan to use a so-called “wet open cut” process to run the pipeline across streams and wetlands. That entails digging a ditch along the bottom of a flowing stream, and can lead to large amounts of sediment and other forms of pollution being washed downstream.

The company has since changed plans. It now proposes to use a dry-cut method, in which a temporary dam diverts the water from half of the river’s width while construction crews dig a trench for the pipe along the exposed river bed. The process is then repeated on the other half of the river.

While the dry-cut method takes longer than 72 hours, it poses less of an environmental risk, the Department of Environmental Protection said in explaining why it was removing the time restriction.

Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a nonprofit law firm that represented the Sierra Club in the 4th Circuit case, objected to the department’s plans during the written public comment period. In the past, a Sierra Club representative did not rule out the possibility of additional litigation if the Army Corps reissues its Nationwide Permit 12.

For Mountain Valley to get the $4.6 billion project fully back on track, it must still win approval from a second federal agency. The U.S. Forest Service had approved the pipeline to pass through about 3.5 miles of the Jefferson National Forest. That authorization was struck down last year by the 4th Circuit, which ruled that the agency failed to take into account expected problems with erosion and sedimentation.

The appeals court ruling sent the permit back to the Forest Service for reconsideration in July. Since then, the agency has said little about the process, other than it was “developing its response” to the issues identified by the court.

The Forest Service has also not responded to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking more information, which was filed in January by The Roanoke Times.

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“Hell With Your Permits — Work Stopped At MVP Site In WV, Protester Charged with Felony” | Blue Virginia, April 25, 2019

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Three (3) Protesters Arrested After Binding to MVP Equipment, WSET, June 5, 2018

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ACP faces many issues of financing, federal regulations and state laws

“The ACP is facing a triple threat,” so concludes a new study released March 25 by Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth.

“Atlantic Coast Pipeline – Risk Upon Risk” cites three principal threats to the viability of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline:

1) extensive legal and regulatory challenges that are delaying construction and raising costs;

2) fundamental challenges to its financial viability in the face of lack of growth in domestic demand for methane gas and increased affordability of renewable energy options; and

3) an unprecedented citizen initiative positioned to ensure strict compliance with environmental laws and regulations.

Some further highlights from the six-page study:

• “The ACP is a climate, environmental and human rights boondoggle.”

• “The ACP is facing an onslaught of legal challenges and loss¬es. Seven federal permits have been stayed, suspended or vacated; in fact, all construction on the pipeline is currently stopped. When — or if — construction will start up again is unknown. Environmental groups, Indigenous Peoples and others have brought at least nine court challenges to ACP permits and certifications, most of which are ongoing.”

• “In Dominion’s 2018 long-term Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), four out of five modeled scenarios showed no in¬crease in methane gas consumption for power generation from 2019 through 2033.9 However, in December 2018, this IRP was rejected by Virginia state regulators, in part for overstating projections of future electricity demand.”

• “The most recent IRPs of Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas also revealed that previously planned methane gas plants have been delayed by at least five years beyond the original proposal, and none have been approved by the state regulator.”

• “Over the next decade, it is likely that the demand for methZane gas in Virginia and North Carolina will decrease further as renewable energy and storage technologies continue to rapidly decline in price and undercut the cost of running methane gas-fired power plants.”

• “If construction proceeds, an unprecedented, highly coordinated science and technology-based Pipeline Compliance Surveillance Initiative (CSI) is positioned to make sure environmental laws and regulations are strictly applied and enforced during construction. It is spearheaded by the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance and member organizations.”

These challenges and the accompanying risk are likely to further delay construction and raise the project’s price tag even higher. If completed, state utility regulators in North Carolina and Virginia are unlikely to justify passing the full cost of methane gas transportation contracts onto ratepayers.

It would be prudent for investors in Dominion, Duke, and Southern to question whether pursuing the ACP further is a good use of capital. As the transition to clean energy gathers pace, the risks and growing costs of this major methane gas pipeline project look increasingly unwise to ratepayers, regulators and investors alike.

Briefing: Atlantic Coast Pipeline – Risk Upon Risk – Lorne Stockman, Oil Change International

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See also: Duke Needs ‘Another Project’ If Atlantic Coast Pipeline Fails, CEO Says – Bloomberg

Dominion would rather ignore reality!

From an Article by Michael Martz, Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 26, 2019

Dominion Energy and its partners in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are looking for new ways around the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, including a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Richmond-based energy company, the lead partner in the project, said Tuesday that it “expects an appeal” to the Supreme Court within 90 days to challenge a 4th Circuit decision. The court tossed out a critical federal permit for the 600-mile pipeline to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains along the Augusta County and Nelson County line.

Dominion declared its intention after a 4th Circuit decision on Monday to dismiss the company’s request for the full appeals court to reconsider a December decision by a three-judge panel. That panel vacated the permits the U.S. Forest Service issued for the project to cross the Appalachian Trail near Wintergreen Resort and portions of two national forests.

The company — anticipating the possible rejection of its request for an “en banc” hearing by the Richmond-based 4th Circuit — estimated earlier this month that the Supreme Court appeal could add $250 million to the cost of the project by delaying completion of the final segment of the pipeline until the end of 2021.

The cost already has risen by $3 billion — to as much as $7.5 billion — since then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced it with Dominion officials in September 2014. The company already has spent $2.8 billion on the stalled project, Dominion officials said in an earnings conference call with investment analysts on February 1st.

“We are actively pursuing multiple paths to resolve all outstanding permit issues, including judicial, legislative and administrative avenues,” Dominion CEO Thomas F. Farrell II said on the conference call.

The company is preparing to split the project into two phases to allow it to first build the pipeline from Buckingham County — where it plans to build a hotly disputed natural gas compressor station at the intersection with an existing pipeline — to Lumberton, N.C.

Dominion also proposes to build a 70-mile spur to serve Hampton Roads, where natural gas supplies are limited for industrial customers and economic development prospects. The company proposes to begin work on the first phase by the end of this year and complete it by late 2020. “The partial construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline will allow us to open up new pathways for the natural gas to reach customers who need it,” spokesman Karl Neddenien said Tuesday.

Environmental groups are filing legal challenges to every move by Dominion and its partners — Duke Energy and Southern Company Gas — to build the pipeline, including a state permit issued in December for the Buckingham compressor station at Union Hill, a historically black community that has been the focal point of protests.

“The 4th Circuit’s decision, now final, confirmed that this pipeline has to play by the same rules as everybody else,” said DJ Gerken, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations.

“The Forest Service has never approved a new pipeline across the Appalachian Trail — but, under intense political pressure, it did for Atlantic, while ignoring routes that would avoid the forest,” Gerken said in a statement Monday night. “Atlantic could reroute, but instead it should scrap this boondoggle and stop running up a bill it wants to stick to customers.”

Dominion acknowledged even before the 4th Circuit ruled against the Forest Service permits on December 12th that the company was pursuing legislation in pending appropriations bills to give the federal agency clear authority to permit the pipeline crossing beneath the Appalachian Trail.

Those efforts went nowhere, as nine federal departments shut down for 35 days for lack of funding in a political deadlock between Congress and President Donald Trump. They averted a second possible shutdown by reaching an agreement this month on funding bills that did not include new authority for the Forest Service to permit the pipeline to cross the national scenic trail.

However, the company said Tuesday that it is still pursuing legislative remedies, as well as administrative solutions that Farrell told analysts had been hampered by the partial government shutdown that began in late December. Among the agencies shut down were the Agriculture Department, which oversees the Forest Service, and the Interior Department, which includes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.

Both of the Interior Department agencies also have been engaged in litigation in the 4th Circuit over permits they issued for the pipeline. The appeals court suspended a stay of the biological opinion by the Fish and Wildlife Service that determined the project would not pose an existential threat to endangered and threatened species.

The 4th Circuit first vacated the “incidental take” statement, part of the biological opinion, in May and confirmed its decision in August. The federal agency reissued the permit the next month, but in early December the court placed a stay on the biological opinion for the entire pipeline route.

Dominion suspended construction — then limited to tree clearing in Virginia — and asked for clarification of the order’s scope. It contends the stay should be limited to a 100-mile stretch that includes the habitat of four endangered or threatened animal species, but the court rejected its request for clarification or additional hearing. The case is scheduled for hearing in early May.

The park service voluntarily vacated the second permit it had issued for the project to cross beneath the Blue Ridge Parkway — which runs beside the Appalachian Trail in the Blue Ridge — after the 4th Circuit struck down the first one in August. “We’re confident the Park Service will review the facts and reissue the permit,” Neddenien, the pipeline spokesman, said Tuesday.

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See also: Dominion adds another natural gas fired power plant to Virginia fleet – Electric Light & Power, December 10, 2018

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is Law!

Article from the Allegheny Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA), December 13, 2018

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated on December 13 the U.S. Forest Service’s approval for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail. The Court’s 60-page opinion came on a case brought by several ABRA members and others that was argued on September 28 (see ABRA Update #200 for details).

The plaintiffs, represented by Southern Environmental Law Center, were Cowpasture River Preservation Association, Highlanders for Responsible Development, Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, Shenandoah Valley Network, Sierra Club, Virginia Wilderness Committee and Wild Virginia.

The Court concluded that the Forest Service’s decisions amending its Forest Plans and granting a Special Use Permit (SPU) for the ACP violate the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and that the Forest Service lacked statutory authority pursuant to the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA) to grant a pipeline right of way across the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. The Court granted the petition for review of the Forest Service’s SPU and its Record of Decision to amend the Forest Plans, as sought by the plaintiffs, vacated those the Forest Service’s decisions and remanded the case to the Forest Service “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

In its opinion, the Court detailed how the Forest Service initially expressed serious skepticism about the ACP’s ability to be constructed through the steep slopes of the central Appalachian mountains in West Virginia and Virginia. In an October 24, 2016 letter to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC (Atlantic), the Court noted that the Forest Service had requested ten site-specific stabilization designs for selected areas of challenging terrain to demonstrate the effectiveness of Atlantic’s proposed steep slope stability program, which Atlantic called the “Best in Class” (“BIC”) Steep Slopes Program” because the agency needed to be able to determine that the project was consistent with the Forest Plans of the George Washington National Forest(GWNF) and the Monongahela National Forest (MNF). The ACP would cross a combined 21-miles of National Forest lands in the two forests. Then, the Court noted, the Forest Service changed its mind and without explanation ultimately approved the project without requiring the requested ten stabilization designs for the project. (For more on the Forest Service request to Atlantic, see ABRA Update #103)

The NFMA establishes a procedure for managing forest plans through the use of Forest Plans and directs the Forest Service to ensure that all activities on forest lands are consistent with those Plans. The Court ruled that the Forest Service, in amending the GWNF and MNF plans, did not follow its own criteria and procedures for doing so. Among reasons cited in the opinion was the Forest Service’s failure to do a proper analysis of whether the ACP could be reasonably routed through non-national forest lands.

In considering the Forest Service’s compliance with NEPA in its evaluation of the ACP, the Court concluded that the agency violated that law “by failing to take a hard look at the environmental consequences of the ACP project. The Forest Service expressed serious concerns that the DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Statement of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the project) lacked necessary information to evaluate landslide risks, erosion impacts, and degradation of water quality, and it further lacked information about the effectiveness of mitigation techniques to reduce those risks.”

Regarding the violation of the MLA, the Court faulted the Forest Service for approving the ACP crossing the ANST on national forest land when the agency did not have the authority to do so. In its concluding paragraph of the opinion, the Court stated:

We trust the United States Forest Service to “speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” Dr. Seuss, The Lorax (1971). A thorough review of the record leads to the necessary conclusion that the Forest Service abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources. This conclusion is particularly informed by the Forest Service’s serious environmental concerns that were suddenly, and mysteriously, assuaged in time to meet a private pipeline company’s deadlines.

Reacting to the Court’s opinion, SELC attorney Patrick Hunter said:

“The George Washington National Forest, Monongahela National Forest and the Appalachian Trail are national treasures. The Administration was far too eager to trade them away for a pipeline conceived to deliver profit to its developers, not gas to consumers. This pipeline is unnecessary and asking fracked gas customers to pay developers to blast this boondoggle through our public lands only adds insult to injury.”

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Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Requested to Revoke ACP’s Certificate

Article from the Allegheny Blue Ridge Alliance, December 13, 2018

In a filing late December 13, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was asked to revoke the certificate for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in light of the decision earlier in the day by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate the U.S. Forest Service’s approval for the pipeline to cross national forest lands and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. In its 65-page letter to FERC, the Southern Environmental Law Center stated:

Crucially, the court held that the Forest Service does not have statutory authority to authorize the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail. As a result, under federal law, Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC (“Atlantic”) cannot obtain authorization from federal agencies to cross the Trail as proposed.

The Commission must therefore revoke the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. Further, the Commission must issue a formal stop-work order, effective immediately, halting all construction activities because the court’s decision means that Atlantic continues to be out of compliance with a mandatory condition of its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity.

Allegheny - Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA) Protest

>>> From: Lewis Freeman, ABRA, September 29, 2018

Yesterday, September 28, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond heard arguments on two important cases challenging permits granted to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP).

The first case challenged the December 13 decision by the Virginia State Water Control Board to grant a water quality certificate for the ACP (pursuant to requirements of Section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act).

The second case challenged the decisions of the U.S. Forest Service to amend the Forest Plans of the Monongahela National Forest and the George Washington National Forest and to accordingly issue a Special Use Permit for the ACP to cross the two forests.

The plaintiffs in both cases were a group of ABRA member organizations and others that were jointly represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates (Appalmad) and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). An article about the briefs filed in each case appeared in the September 21 ABRA Update:

https://www.abralliance.org/2018/09/21/court-to-hear-challenges-to-acp-forest-service-water-quality-permits/?highlight=court%20to%20hear%20challenges

I attended Friday’s arguments. The lawyers representing our interests – Ben Luckett of Appalmad in the 401 case; D.J. Gerkin of SELC in the Forest Service case – were most effective. More about the oral arguments will appear in next week’s ABRA Update.

For now, though, I want to highlight a particularly significant moment during the arguments presented in the Forest Service case. In the course of the argument presented by the U.S. Justice Department attorney representing the U.S. Forest Service, Chief Judge Roger Gregory, who was presiding over the panel, interrupted the attorney and noted that the U.S. Forest Service had been diligently asking Dominion Energy for more complete information on how the company would and could build the ACP through the steep forest lands in West Virginia and Virginia without causing environmental damage. The judge then observed that the Forest Service seemed to have suddenly changed its mind and proceeded to approve the requested Special Use Permit.

Judge Gregory inquired of the attorney what the circumstances were that caused the Forest Service to change course. The attorney responded evasively, prompting the judge to interrupt him again and ask: “When?” The attorney tried to continue with his non-responsive response, and Judge Gregory again interrupted with: “When?” The judge’s “When?” question was asked twice more, but never received a response, prompting Judge Gregory to thunder: “Who’s running the train?” It was a riveting moment and one that also caught the attention of Michael Martz of the Richmond Times Dispatch, whose article about yesterday’s arguments appears in this morning’s paper and is available here.

A recording of Friday’s oral arguments will be available on the Court’s website on Monday. The case numbers you will need to access the recordings are: 401 case – 18-1077; Forest Service case: 18-1144.

>>> Lewis Freeman, Executive Director, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, ABRA Web-site: https://www.abralliance.org/

MVP in the Blue Ridge Mountains of VA

Excerpt from Article by Kate Mishkin and Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette-Mail, and Beena Raghavendran, ProPublica, August 10, 2018

Update, August 10, 9 p.m.: On Friday evening, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order halting all work on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. FERC cited an appeals court ruling that found the National Park Service and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service skirted environment rules when approving the $5.5 billion, 600-mile project.

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A week ago, the federal government halted work on the massive MVP pipeline project that runs from Northern West Virginia through Southern Virginia.

The government said it had no choice but to order work on the multibillion-dollar Mountain Valley Pipeline stopped after a federal appeals court ruled that two federal agencies had neglected to follow important environmental protections when they approved the project.

The court had found that the U.S. Forest Service had suddenly dropped — without any explanation — its longstanding concerns that soil erosion from the pipeline would harm rivers, streams and aquatic life. It also found that the Bureau of Land Management approved a new construction path through the Jefferson National Forest, ignoring rules that favor sticking to existing utility rights-of-way.

“American citizens understandably place their trust in the Forest Service to protect and preserve this country’s forests, and they deserve more than silent acquiescence to a pipeline company’s justification for upending large swaths of national forestlands,” Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote for a unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “Citizens also trust the Bureau of Land Management to prevent undue degradation to public lands by following the dictates” of federal law.

It turns out, those weren’t the only times state and federal regulators bent environmental standards for the project, which began construction in February.

A review by the Charleston Gazette-Mail, in collaboration with ProPublica, shows that, over the past two years, federal and state agencies tasked with enforcing the nation’s environmental laws have moved repeatedly to clear roadblocks and expedite the pipeline, even changing the rules at times to ease the project’s approvals.

Projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline, known as MVP, require a variety of approvals before being built. Developers and regulators must study various alternatives, describe a clear need for the project, and show that steps will be taken to minimize damage to the environment and reduce negative effects on valuable resources like public lands and the water supply.

But in numerous instances, officials greenlit the pipeline despite serious unanswered questions, records show.

For example:

— After citizen groups brought a lawsuit challenging how West Virginia regulators concluded that the pipeline would not violate state water quality standards, the state Department of Environmental Protection dropped its review and instead waived its authority to decide if the project complied with its rules. This effectively ended the legal challenge and paved the way for construction to begin.

— Confronted with a similar lawsuit filed by the same citizen groups, the state and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moved to rewrite their rules for how long pipeline construction could block the flow of rivers. Environmentalists fear that, under the plan approved by the Corps, four West Virginia rivers could be left dry for long periods of time, potentially harming aquatic life during construction.

— Developers persuaded judges to speed court proceedings and grant them access to private property along the route to cut down trees, saying they needed to do so before protected bats came out of hibernation. But then, despite guidelines saying no logging could take place after March 31, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission twice extended the company’s deadline.

Regulatory agencies waiving standards and rewriting rules to pave the way for economic projects isn’t new. West Virginians have watched it happen for decades with the coal industry, as mine operators used variances to avoid strict land reclamation standards or fill streams with waste rock and dirt. That pattern is continuing with the natural gas boom.

“I’ve seen this kind of behavior from agencies before,” said Pat Parenteau, who teaches environmental law at the Vermont Law School. “They start out being strong, but they roll over, especially for these big energy projects that have this national interest, energy security push behind them.”

In its “stop work” order last week, FERC said, “there is no reason to believe” that the federal agencies involved would not “ultimately issue” new permits that would withstand the court’s scrutiny. But until then, FERC ordered that “construction activity along all portions of the project and in all work areas must cease immediately.”

A news release from Mountain Valley Pipeline echoed FERC’s statement that the pipeline permits would be easily reissued. Developers said they would work closely with the agencies involved to resolve the challenges to their work and “we look forward to continuing the safe construction of this important infrastructure project.”

When it is built, the Mountain Valley Pipeline will transport natural gas from Wetzel County, near West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle, to Pittsylvania County, Virginia, crossing about 200 miles in West Virginia and 100 miles in Virginia. It is one of several large transmission pipelines in the works across the Appalachians, part of the ongoing rush to market natural gas from the boom in drilling and production in the sprawling Marcellus Shale formation.

In another ruling that exposed flaws in the government’s pipeline review process, the 4th Circuit earlier this week threw out two permits for a pipeline even bigger than the MVP: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a $5.5 billion effort to transport gas more than 600 miles, from central West Virginia to the eastern portions of Virginia and North Carolina.

Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrotethat the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved the project without setting any real limits on damage to endangered species, and the National Park Service granted permission for pipeline developers to drill under the Blue Ridge Parkway without determining if doing so was consistent with the road’s protection as a unit of the Park Service.

Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman for the Park Service, said the agency is reviewing the ruling.

Because different permits for pipelines cover different parts and types of construction work, it’s not entirely clear how one court ruling that overturns one permit ultimately affects other parts of the construction. Eventually, such decisions are made by FERC, which is the lead agency for gas infrastructure projects.

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This article was produced in partnership with the Charleston Gazette-Mail, which is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network. See the full article here.

Protesting at Wayne National Forest in Ohio

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, December 15, 2016

Despite heavy opposition from public health and environmental groups, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has leased 759 acres of Ohio’s only national forest for fracking.

According to the Associated Press, oil and gas companies from Texas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado and Oklahoma forked over $1.7 million for the right to explore parts of Wayne National Forest for drilling operations. Lessees still need to obtain a permit before any drilling can start.

The online auction took place on Dec. 13 with the minimum acceptable bid for as little as $2 per acre. The Columbus Dispatch reported that offers made by the 22 registered bidders ranged from the $2 minimum to a high of $5,806.12 per acre.

Opponents of the federal auction, cited concerns over public health impacts and effects on air and water quality, and submitted more than 17,000 comments to the BLM during its 30-day comment period.

“Public lands are for the people, not for the benefit of Big Oil and Gas,” Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, said in a statement last month. “Drilling for oil and gas means more fracking, and fracking means poisoning our air and water, and threatening the health of our communities and our environment. At a time when clean energy like solar and wind is proving to be safest, healthiest and most cost-effective way to power our country, it’s high time we recognized that we need to leave dirty fuels like coal, oil and gas in the ground.”

The BLM reportedly received 100 “valid” complaints but they were all denied by the agency on Monday and the auction moved forward.

Nathan Johnson, an Ohio Environmental Council attorney who helped file a protest on behalf of conservation groups, told the Dispatch that the BLM failed to address new information about the size of well pads and pipelines that come with large-scale fracking projects. “Once they’ve made the decision to lease, that’s the ballgame for them,” he said.

The protest letter also states that the BLM did not adequately address the potential impacts from the oil and gas leasing on threatened or endangered species, including the Indiana bat, northern long-eared bat, fanshell, pink mucket pearly mussel, sheepnose mussel and snuffbox mussel.

“The government’s plan is remarkably shortsighted in its failure to consider the full extent of fracking and wastewater disposal that could occur throughout the forest,” Wendy Park, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said. “Water quality and wildlife will suffer regardless of where these activities occur.”

Just this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its widely anticipated final report on fracking confirming that the controversial drilling process does impact drinking water. The report is a stunning reversal of its misleading draft assessment that stated fracking has not led to “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.”

In addition to allowing fracking on public lands, Ohio lawmakers passed House Bill 554 last week, which will freeze renewable energy mandates for another two years if Gov. John Kasich signs the bill. More than 25,000 clean energy jobs are at risk.

A two-year freeze was enacted when Gov. Kasich signed SB 310 on June 13, 2014. HB 554 now seeks to extend that freeze, making renewable energy targets voluntary for utilities. Ohio is the only state in the nation that has frozen its renewable energy mandates. 

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 U. S. Forest Service says no drilling on 40,000 acres in the Wyoming Range

By Christine Peterson, Casper Star Tribune, December 16, 2016

Oil and gas drilling will not be allowed in almost 40,000 acres of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service announced Friday, ending more than a decade of limbo for conservation groups and energy companies.

The Forest Service said the outcome was based on more than 62,000 comments on four possible options.

“What really came through was sense of place and what the Wyoming Range embodied in terms of the landscape and how people derive their economic welfare from it,” said Mary Cernicek, spokeswoman for the Bridger-Teton forest, citing varying uses in the area from ranching to outfitting, hunting and tourism.

The 30 leases were a holdover from when Congress passed the Wyoming Range Legacy Act in 2009, which protected 1.2 million acres from development. Stretching across the eastern side of the Wyoming Range, the oil and gas leases were never allowed to be developed, nor were they conserved as part of the broader tract of land.

Outdoor groups like the National Outdoor Leadership School, the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and Trout Unlimited worked for years to remove the acres from leasing. They hailed the final decision as a victory for outdoor recreation and the environment.

“After 10 years of standing up for the Wyoming Range and after two incredible success stories, this is the happy ending we’d hoped for,” said Mike Burd, spokesman for Citizens for the Wyoming Range and Green River trona miner. “Responsible energy development means some places, like the Wyoming Range, should be managed for wildlife, hunting, fishing and recreation, not oil and gas.”

The decision was disappointing, however, for oil companies who planned to drill in the leases.

Peter Wold is president of Wold Oil Properties — one of six companies with leases in the area — and has been waiting since 2006 for the opportunity to develop them. He said his company could have drilled underground from existing leases resulting in no surface occupancy.

“The whole thing has been a frustrating experience,” Wold said. “They took our money and have not issued the leases. It’s hard for me to understand particularly because we’ve said we would have no surface impact on forest lands.”

Wold’s leases were on the very edge of the area that could have been drilled, said Aaron Bannon, environmental stewardship and sustainability director for the National Outdoor Leadership School. Some of the other leases were in the heart of the forest in the middle of where NOLS runs two-week outdoor courses for 14- and 15-year-olds.

“There was a decent potential if the decision wasn’t what it is, we could see some pretty significant oil and gas development right on our operating area,” he said.

Trout Unlimited, which fought against the leases citing areas of native cutthroat trout habitat, applauded the Forest Service’s decision.

“There is a time and a place in Wyoming for oil and gas development, but the Wyoming Range isn’t one of those places,” said Tasha Sorensen, Wyoming field representative for Trout Unlimited. “Maintaining access to intact natural landscapes in Wyoming is essential to maintaining our sporting heritage and outdoor recreation businesses.”

The decision by the Forest Service is final and will be signed by USDA Undersecretary Robert Bonnie in 30 days.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Baby flying squirrels --sleeping

U.S. Forest Service rejects route for ACP pipeline through WV & VA

From an Article by Steve Szkotak, Charleston Gazette-Mail (Associated Press), January 21, 2016

Richmond, VA (AP) – The U.S. Forest Service has rejected the proposed route of a 550-mile natural gas pipeline through national forests in Virginia and West Virginia because of concerns over the project’s impact on an endangered salamander and other resources.

In a letter this week to federal regulators, the Forest Service said the builders of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline will have to consider alternate routes through the George Washington and Monongahela national forests.

Besides cow knob salamanders in Virginia, foresters also cited concerns about northern flying squirrels in West Virginia and red spruce restoration areas along the proposed 30-mile pipeline route through the national forests. The Forest Service described the two species and forestland as “irreplaceable” and said they must be considered in developing an alternate route.

The red spruce restoration area is in the Cheat Mountain area within the Monongahela. It is considered one of the most diverse bio-systems in West Virginia.

Dominion Virginia Power, Duke Energy and other energy partners have proposed building the $5 billion pipeline, one of at least two interstate pipelines that would carve a path through West Virginia and Virginia. The pipelines are intended to deliver natural gas from the shale fields of northern West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina.

The application for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In a release, Dominion said it would continue to work with the Forest Service to find an alternate route through the national forests. “The ACP believes that its routing specialists, in consultation with USFS officials, will find an acceptable route,” the release said.

Pipeline critics welcomed the decision and said it was clear the national forest route was a bad one. “Dominion stubbornly persisted on a route that was identified as severely destructive from the start,” Greg Buppert, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in a statement. “It is time for them to step back and truly reconsider the need for this pipeline at all.”

The habitat of the salamander cited by the Forest Service is along Shenandoah Mountain in western Virginia, between 2,000 and 4,400 feet in elevation. Pipeline builders had proposed going under the mountain to avoid any harm to endangered animals. The Forest Service rejected the idea. “The pipeline must be routed around areas where Cow Knob salamander habitat is found,” regional foresters wrote in a letter to pipeline builders.

The Forest Service said in the letter it is “committed to cooperating with FERC and working with ACP on continued development of the project,” but it must balance “sensitive resources” and the growing demand for natural gas.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline has encountered pockets of resistance along its path, primarily among residents in western and central regions of Virginia. They have cited property rights and environmental concerns.

The pipeline has the backing of governors in West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. They have embraced the economic benefits of the pipeline, including new industry and jobs.