FERC’s Mountain Valley Pipeline stop-work order may be temporary

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a stop-work order for the proposed Mountain Valley interstate natural gas pipeline. Opponents immediately said the Aug. 3 action was a major setback for the planned 303-mile system from West Virginia to southern Virginia, but the project’s sponsors noted on Aug. 6 the order itself indicated that it could be temporary.

FERC issued the order in response to a July 27 decision by US Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit Judge Stephanie D. Thacker in Richmond that vacated decisions by the US Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service (USFS) authorizing construction across their lands and remanded the matter to the agencies for further consideration.

“There is no reason to believe that the Forest Service or the Army Corps of Engineers, as the land-managing agencies, or the BLM, as the federal rights-of-way grantor, will not be able to comply with the court’s instructions and to ultimately issue new right-of-way grants that satisfy the court’s requirements,” FERC Energy Projects Office Director Terry L. Turpin said in the order.

“However, [FERC] staff cannot predict when these agencies may act or whether these agencies will ultimately approve the same route,” Turpin said. “Should the agencies authorize alternative routes, [Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP)] may need to revise substantial portions of the project route across nonfederal lands, possibly requiring further authorizations and environmental review.”

The permits in question cover only 3½ miles, or 1% of the proposed project’s route, Pittsburgh-based MVP said on Aug. 6.

“We agree with FERC that the USFS and BLM will be able to satisfy the Fourth Circuit Court’s requirements regarding their respective decisions; and we believe that the two agencies will work quickly to supplement their initial records. In addition, we are confident that the BLM has reached the correct conclusion during their initial analysis of alternatives in the [Juniper National Forest] and agree that MVP’s current route has the least overall impact to the environment.”

MVP said it is evaluating its construction plan daily and continues to target a first quarter 2019 in-service date as BLM and the USFS work to supplement and recast their initial filings to be more in-line with the court’s order.

Meanwhile, another panel of judges in the same court apparently ruled in the project’s favor in a separate case on Aug. 3. In an opinion by Judge William B. Traxler Jr., in which Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory and Judge Traxler joined, the court denied a petition by some landowners and environmental organizations seeking a review of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s water crossing approvals for MVP that the state agency issued under Section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act in June 2017.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].