The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authorized builders of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to resume construction along roughly 200 miles of the project in Virginia and West Virginia on Aug. 29 to best protect the environment.
The action modified FERC’s Aug. 3 stop-work order after the US Bureau of Land Management notified the federal energy regulator on Aug. 24 that a supplemental analysis of other possible routes found the one that was approved previously offered the best collocation opportunities across federal lands, FERC Energy Projects Office Director Terry L. Turpin said in a letter to the project’s sponsor.
“Approximately 65% of the right-of-way between Mileposts 77 and 303 has been cleared of vegetation, with a significant portion of that length having been graded,” he said. “In those cleared and graded segments, [MVP] has installed temporary erosion control devices.”
Maintaining the status quo across nonfederal lands while the US Forest Service, the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), and BLM address court instructions regarding federal lands would likely pose threats to plant and wildlife habitat and adjacent water bodies as long-term employment of temporary erosion control measures would subject portions of the route to erosion and soil movement, Turpin said.
“Requiring immediate restoration of the entire right-of-way to preconstruction conditions would require significant additional construction activity, also causing further environmental impacts,” he added.
Construction will not be permitted to resume along two stretches of the project—at the crossing of the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike on lands owned by ACE in Braxton County, W.Va., and an area between Mile Post 196 and 201 crossing two watersheds in Jefferson National Forest in Monroe County, W.Va., and Giles County, Va.—because MVP has not obtain the necessary rights-of-way and temporary use permits from the federal government, Turpin said.
“Finally, construction is being authorized, with the exceptions note above, because [it] will best mitigate further environmental impacts. In order to ensure that [MVP] achieve that objective, it must take all steps necessary to promptly conduct post-construction restoration as soon as construction is complete,” the FERC official said.
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
