Mountain Valley Pipeline will again seek new permits that have twice been cast aside by the courts, delaying completion to the second half of 2023 and boosting the project’s cost to $6.6 billion.
The latest revised plan for the natural gas pipeline was outlined by its lead partner, Equitrans Midstream Corp., in a conference call Tuesday with financial analysts.
“After engaging with the federal agencies and evaluating all options, we believe the best path forward for MVP’s completion is to pursue new permits,” said Thomas Karam, chairman and chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh company.
Another option would have been to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions from a federal appellate court, which earlier this year struck down two key government permits in the latest blow to the long-delayed pipeline.
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A third possibility — the cancellation of the project that opponents covet — does not appear to be in the cards.
“We are still all lockstep in agreement with our partners in terms of the path forward and what our costs will be,” Diana Charletta, Equitrans’ president and chief operating officer, said during the call.
Four other energy companies, including a subsidiary of the corporate parent of Roanoke Gas Co., are joining Equitrans in building the 303-mile pipeline, which will pass through the New River and Roanoke valleys.
When work began on Virginia’s largest natural gas pipeline in February 2018, the plan was to have it completed by the end the year at a cost of $3.7 billion.
Environmental groups and local opponents have filed legal challenges at every turn, causing repeated delays and cost overruns. The most recent goal before Tuesday’s announcement was for construction to be done this summer, at a cost of $6.2 billion.
Now, it will likely be another year before workers return to idled work sites along a 125-foot-wide right of way for the buried pipe that runs from northern West Virginia through Southwest Virginia to connect with an existing pipeline near the North Carolina line.
Assuming that permits are reissued — and survive another legal fight that is almost sure to come — Mountain Valley says it plans to restart construction next spring or summer and finish the job in four to five months.
No one should be surprised by the latest delay, pipeline opponents say.
Roberta Bondurant, co-chair of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition, called the pipeline “a dying project that is sucking the life out of the environment and our communities to postpone its final demise.”
“The MVP must admit its final defeat immediately, rather than continuing to ... waste the precious time we have to address the climate crisis,” Bondurant said in a statement.
“The national movement to stop MVP has fought this pipeline for nearly a decade and we will continue to fight it until our communities are safe from its needless destruction.”
Opponents say that burning the natural gas to be transported by the pipeline will worsen climate change. Already, construction has caused environmental damage by releasing muddy runoff into nearby streams.
Problems with erosion and sedimentation led to citations by regulators and, more recently, concerns from judges.
In late January, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a U.S. Forest Service permit allowing the pipeline to pass through 3.5 miles of the Jefferson National Forest in Giles and Montgomery counties.
The following month, the same three-judge panel invalidated a biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had concluded that building the pipeline would not jeopardize endangered species such as the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter.
The rulings marked the second round of defeats for government agencies and the pipeline at the hands of the Fourth Circuit.
A few weeks later, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — which had also run into legal trouble with its approval of stream crossings for the pipeline — announced that would put on hold the latest permit application from Mountain Valley.
In a rare victory for the pipeline last month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Mountain Valley’s plans to bore under some of the streams and wetlands in its path.
Asking during Tuesday’s conference call about the past difficulties with the Fourth Circuit, pipeline officials said the legal issues have been narrowed by previous decisions.
The company predicted success on the third try before a court that it has previously criticized for abandoning the judicial deference normally given to federal agencies.
“We recognize the scrutiny these permits will inevitably face,” Karam said. “However, we are confident that the agencies can produce technically sound permits, as they have in the past, while also connecting the dots between the technical decisions and the relevant federal law, effectively mitigating potential perceived ambiguities.”
Karam also spoke about the war in Ukraine, which he said has restricted natural gas supplies on a global level and increased the need for ventures like Mountain Valley.
While it remains important to continue the transition to renewable energy, he said, “we have to accept and acknowledge that it’s going to be a long period of time that we will absolutely continue to use natural gas as a critical component.”