Published: February 1, 2021 |

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Federal energy regulators have slowed down the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, surprising some opponents of the project by not approving a request from Mountain Valley to bore under 69 waterbodies and wetlands along 77 miles of the pipeline at its northernmost end in West Virginia.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission split in a 2-2 vote Tuesday, with a fifth commissioner abstaining from voting, setting the issue aside without a resolution.

The FERC’s deadlock denied Mountain Valley’s requests to complete construction and final restoration work along the first 77 miles of the pipeline and effectively eliminate an exclusion zone where construction had been barred. The commission had issued an order last month allowing construction along a 17-mile stretch of the 25-mile zone covering parts of the Jefferson National Forest and surrounding private land.

FERC Commissioner Richard Glick said during the commission’s virtual meeting that, in his view, the project could resume construction only after it secures all federal permits for waterbody crossings.

In November, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed permitting for waterbody construction that had been issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“The reason the commission doesn’t authorize construction in the absence in a permit is that it makes no sense to enable a developer to begin digging up land and laying down the pipe when it may be that the subsequent permit is never obtained or it may be that the route of the project has to change because of the conditions associated with the subsequent permit,” Glick said.

Glick has been consistent on that point, but he was joined in opposing Mountain Valley’s request by a commissioner who was sworn in last month, Allison Clements. The commission’s newest member, Mark C. Christie, abstained from voting.

Mary O’Driscoll, a FERC spokeswoman, said Christie felt that Mountain Valley’s proposal might relate to his 17 years with the Virginia State Corporation Commission, from which he joined the FERC earlier this month. O’Driscoll added that Christie “may explore such issues” in these proceedings going forward.

Conservationists applauded the FERC, which they have viewed as a rubber stamp for pipeline projects such as the MVP in the past.

Canceled by developers in July, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would have transported natural gas supplies from West Virginia to public utilities in Virginia and North Carolina. It was to span 600 miles. Before it was canceled, 21.8 miles of pipe was installed in West Virginia, and only 32.1 of the project’s 92.8 miles would have been left undisturbed, according to a restoration plan that Atlantic Coast Pipeline filed earlier this month with the FERC.

Source: Charleston Gazette Mail

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