Federal appeals court vacates Mountain Valley Pipeline approvals
In a significant victory for environmental groups and other opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond has vacated approvals that allowed the 300-mile natural gas pipeline, which is currently under construction, to cross the Jefferson National Forest near the Virginia-West Virginia border.
In response to a case brought by a group of organizations opposed to the project, a panel of judges ruled that the U.S. Forest Service and the federal Bureau of Land Management’s decisions ran afoul of the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act and the Mineral Leasing Act.
“MVP’s proposed project would be the largest pipeline of its kind to cross the Jefferson National Forest,” the opinion says. “American citizens understandably place their trust in the Forest Service to protect and preserve this country’s forests, and they deserve more than silent acquiescence to a pipeline company’s justification for upending large swaths of national forestlands.”
Nathan Matthews, an attorney with the Sierra Club, one of the groups that brought the case, called the decision “great news” for “everyone who cares about clean water and pristine forests.” The decision comes as MVP, which is planned to run from Wetzel County, W.V., to Pittsylvania County in southwest Virginia, has racked up a string of violations from environmental regulators in Virginia and West Virginia.
Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2018/07/27/federal-appeals-court-vacates-mountain-valley-pipeline-approvals/
Note: The Virginia Mercury site is a new collaboration of experienced journalists that have left other newspapers in the state.
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