For the third time in six years, the U.S. Forest Service will study the environmental impact of burrowing a large natural gas pipeline through a 3.5-mile stretch of the Jefferson National Forest.
The latest evaluation comes after a federal appeals court rejected two earlier approvals for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Both times, in 2018 and again earlier this year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Forest Service did not adequately address the erosion and sedimentation to be caused by clearing land and digging a trench for a buried pipe that will traverse steep slopes through federal woodlands in Giles and Montgomery counties.
A draft environmental impact statement will be completed by January, the service said Thursday. That will be followed by a 45-day public comment period, with final action expected by summer 2023.
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Mountain Valley said the timeline aligns with its plans to complete the long-delayed, $6.6 billion project by the end of next year.
“Mountain Valley believes that the few items referenced in the Fourth Circuit’s remand issued in January 2022 can be addressed within the timeframe outlined by the agency,” spokeswoman Natalie Cox wrote in an email.
“With total project work roughly 94% complete, Mountain Valley looks forward to safely and responsibly completing this critical infrastructure project to serve the growing demand for affordable, reliable energy.”
Opponents argue that the pipeline is closer to halfway finished. Mountain Valley must also apply for a new assessment of its impact to endangered species from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Fourth Circuit has also raised questions about a permit for the pipeline to cross streams and wetlands, which is now in a third round of litigation from environmental groups.
Currently, 10 other natural gas pipelines bisect the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, which encompass 1.8 million acres in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
But Mountain Valley would be the largest, and is the only interstate pipeline that falls under the regulation of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
After entering in national forest in Monroe County, West Virginia, the pipeline will be buried beneath the Appalachian Trail and then run southeast through the New River and Roanoke valleys.
“As a federal land management agency with a multiple-use mission, the Forest Service considers authorization of many different types of uses on National Forest System lands,” Joby Timm, supervisor for the Jefferson National Forest, said in statement Thursday. “Our mission is caring for the land and serving people.”
Opponents — from national environmental giants such as the Sierra Club to local community groups — have contested more than a dozen state and federal permits issued to Mountain Valley. They contend that constructing a 42-inch diameter steel pipe along mountainsides and through streams and wetlands is a recipe for disaster.
Mountain Valley has been cited nearly 500 times for violating regulations meant to control muddy runoff in Virginia and West Virginia, where the 303-mile pipeline starts.
In rejecting the latest permit from the Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the agencies “erroneously failed to account for real-world data suggesting increased sedimentation along the pipeline route.”
The decision was less sweeping than the court’s 2018 opinion. In that case, it took the Forest Service more than two years to conduct a new environmental impact statement and approve a permit that would later be struck down.
With Mountain Valley now forced to seek a third approval from the Forest Service, “it is not clear to us if the delay is a threat to the project’s in-service date,” Height Capital Markets, an investment banking firm that is monitoring the project, said in a commentary.
“But it is another factor for investors to monitor closely.”
Russell Chisholm, a Giles County pipeline opponent who coordinates a citizens monitoring group, said: The company should recognize this reality and put an immediate stop to their efforts to destroy our mountains and homes for the sake of their own financial gain, during a climate catastrophe.”