Many people may be wondering what happened to that Mountain Valley Pipeline. The answer is a lot legally and not much physically since last summer.
The 42’’ natural gas pipeline burst on the scene in 2015 with a series of public meetings to showcase the proposed 302-mile transmission of fracked gas from northern West Virginia to central Virginia, crossing Summers and Monroe counties, the Appalachian Trail and the Greenbrier River. The developers believed it could carry two billion cubic feet of gas per day and be operational in 2018. It promised to create hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars for tax-hungry counties.
In 2015 the builders said it would cost $3.2 billion to complete. At a court hearing in Charleston in 2017, a lawyer argued that every month it was delayed it would cost an additional $50 million. Meanwhile, the price of natural gas was dropping with oversupply. Now, the estimate is close to $6 billion.
Five years later it is built along a major stretch across Greenbrier and Summers counties from a Fayette compressor station ending just above the Greenbrier River at Pence Springs. Then, on the other side, it is installed into Monroe County until it reaches other waterways it can not cross. MVP never got the approval on different ways to cross the Greenbrier or many other streams and wetlands. The original “nationwide permit” to trench through these obstacles did not detail the designs and impacts sufficiently, according to repeated court judgments brought by environmental groups.
EQT Trans, the Pittsburgh-based corporation, claims the pipeline is “92% finished.” Observers on the ground say this is far from the case, another example of MVP asserting the project has been a “done deal” from the beginning. In December it won a second ruling from the U.S. Forest Service that it could cross the 3.5 miles of the Jefferson National Forest in Monroe County in West Virginia and Giles and Montgomery counties in Virginia.
Then on January 19, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) deadlocked in a 2-2 vote on MVP’s request to bore under streams and wetlands in the first 77 miles in northern West Virginia. The once little-known agency had customarily allowed the MVP to begin construction even though it had not designed its water crossings and obtained many rights of way across public lands.
FERC regulates the construction and operation of interstate gas transmission. Since its creation after WWII, it has rarely ruled against any industry proposal. Its five members are appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. President Trump left a couple of seats empty until just before leaving office. One of the new appointees abstained from voting, creating a 2-2 deadlock, unlike previous rulings by FERC.
The agency’s mandate is to certify that all projects are in the “public necessity and convenience.” With President Biden, FERC will have a Democrat as chairman who sets the agenda and may be less deferential to corporations. The opposition to MVP has doggedly generated overwhelming negative feedback in public comments and sustained numerous challenges in court.
Maury Johnson of Monroe county is a landowner whose farm was crossed by the pipeline. He became a challenger of MVP at every turn, frequently photographing the soil runoff from steep hillsides and pursuing the case at every hearing. He commented on the latest development, “Finally FERC may be changing to work for the citizens of the U.S. and not for the energy corporations.”
Vigilant citizens have monitored the Mountain Valley Pipeline since MVP broke ground. They have documented hundreds of environmental violations. “They’re working steep slopes with highly erosive soils, and we’re seeing slopes fail over and over,” said Autumn Crowe of Lewisburg. MVP has paid over $266,000 in fines for these types of violations.
