New Lawsuit Launched Against Mountain Valley Pipeline

RICHMOND, Va. — Conservation groups today launched a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). The petition for review of the project was filed with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the Endangered Species Act, issued an opinion that allowed the pipeline to move forward — despite its serious threats to endangered species. The agency failed to accurately measure the pipeline’s impacts on endangered wildlife like the iconic Roanoke logperch and failed to set limits for how many threatened and endangered bats can be harmed or killed. 

The lawsuit seeks to vacate the Service’s decision and force the agency to re-evaluate the project’s impact. The groups argue that construction on the already-foundering pipeline should stop until that process is complete. 

Today, the groups also sent a letter to the agency requesting that it stay the biological opinion and incidental take statement pending court review. The species at issue include the Roanoke logperch, Indiana bat and Northern long-eared bat. The suit was filed by the Sierra Club on behalf of Wild Virginia, Appalachian Voices, Preserve Bent Mountain/BREDL, Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, and Chesapeake Climate Action Network. 

Additionally, MVP does not have Clean Water Act authorization to cross streams and wetlands from the Army Corps, and does not have necessary U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management authorizations.

In response, Sierra Club Staff Attorney Elly Benson released the following statement:

“The fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline puts several endangered species in harm’s way, while serving only to line the pockets of polluting corporations. MVP has proven it can’t build this unnecessary pipeline without devastating streams and rivers, as well as the forest habitats of  Appalachia. The public should be able to trust that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is making protection of endangered species its highest priority, but it fell short of that obligation here.”

David Sligh, Conservation Director for Wild Virginia stated:

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, like numerous other government agencies tasked with protecting the public and our resources, failed to do its job. Citizens cannot and will not accept actions that endanger the future of some of our rarest and most precious wildlife species. This destructive pipeline has already caused great damage to the environment and the public and it must be stopped before that damage gets worse.”

Roberta Bondurant, Preserve Bent Mountain/BREDL, said:

“Our mountain communities continue to witness MVP ravage the forest, field, stream and wetland sanctuaries of species that have supposedly been protected by federal law. We ask USFWS and the courts to do no more—and no less—than uphold that law through a critical review of the Biological Opinion. At best, the writers of that document ignored evidence of MVP construction as a threat to species survival—survival which will ultimately implicate our own.”

Anne Havemann, General Counsel for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, stated: 

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proven its carelessness in forcing through a permit for the similarly destructive Atlantic Coast Pipeline. We have seen this same carelessness in the Service’s permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. This pipeline has already wreaked havoc on the landscape; it must not be allowed to continue to jeopardize the existence of our invaluable endangered species.” 

Jared Margolis, Center for Biological Diversity senior attorney, said:

“This pipeline is a major threat to the Roanoke River system and the people and imperiled species that rely on it. Regulators can’t keep shrugging off the environmental harms of pipeline projects. We need to stop destroying habitats and waterways for fossil fuels that are driving the climate catastrophe.”

Jason Rylander, Senior Endangered Species Counsel for Defenders of Wildlife, said:

“The Mountain Valley Pipeline poses an enormous threat to the fish, wildlife, forests, and people in its path. The Trump administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fast-tracked this project and failed to properly evaluate its impact on imperiled species. The Service needs to reconsider its biological opinion and further construction of this environmentally destructive project should cease before iconic species and landscapes are lost forever.” 

Contact: Doug Jackson, Sierra Club, (202) 495-3045 or doug.jackson@sierraclub.org
Jared Margolis, Center for Biological Diversity, (802) 310-4054, jmargolis@biologicaldiversity.org

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Thousands Demand An Accurate Review Of Mountain Valley Pipeline

Thousands of citizens, local and conservation groups demand FERC do an accurate review of the Mountain Valley Pipeline

Groups call on FERC to issue completely revised Draft EIS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Over the past three months, more than 17,000 people in the affected region — along with tens of thousands of others across the country — have sent comments or signed petitions to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission demanding the agency do a thorough, accurate and unbiased review of the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline, and ultimately reject the project. Local groups and environmental organizations submitted hundreds of detailed comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory (FERC) outlining numerous reasons finding the Draft Environmental Impact Statement substantially lacking information for meaningful review.
The proposed pipeline passes through important habitat in the Jefferson National Forest and would have devastating impacts on the New River Valley and surrounding areas. There are many substantial deficiencies in the DEIS that must be corrected through the issuance of a completely revised DEIS, including the failure to fully evaluate the need for the MVP and the failure to fully evaluate the impacts to water resources, wetlands, cultural resources, threatened and endangered species, and climate change implications. Correcting these deficiencies will require significant new analysis and the incorporation of high quality and accurate information regarding MVP impacts.
Legal and environmental experts have filed review comments of the nearly 2,600-page document that identified major gaps in FERC’s analysis, including:

  • Failure to identify, consider, and analyze all reasonable alternatives. The DEIS fails to consider alternative routes and options, including a “no action” alternative, as required by the National Environmental Protection Act. The Council on Environmental Quality  refers to the alternatives analysis section as the “heart of the EIS”.
  • Failure to consider climate change impacts. FERC does not analyze the significance of the total annual greenhouse gas emissions in any meaningful way.
  • Failure to address the need for the MVP. Despite the clear requirement to discuss the need for the MVP project in the DEIS, FERC says that it will not address project need until after the environmental analysis is over.
  • Failure to provide adequate environmental information. The DEIS lacks sufficient information about the MVP and its potential environmental impacts on a wide variety of resources, including water resources, wetlands, cultural resources, threatened and endangered species, and climate change implications.

In addition to significant flaws, there is a significant amount of information regarding other environmental impacts that is missing from the DEIS that will not be provided by the applicants in a manner that facilitates meaningful public disclosure and participation.
David Sligh, Conservation Director, Wild Virginia, 434-964-7455.
“FERC must revise the draft EIS to correct gross deficiencies in information and flawed analyses.  Wild Virginia calls on the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to insist on a new and adequate DEIS from FERC, or to fulfill their legal duties and prepare their own.”
Ben Luckett, Senior Attorney, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, 304.645.0125, bluckett@appalmad.org.
“We’re shocked the FERC has continued to disregard its federal duties and fast track this project — especially given major gaps in the agency’s understanding of the pipeline’s impacts, as well as any need for it in the first place. FERC has the extraordinary power to allow MVP to take private property for its shareholders’ own private gain. Just because the job of evaluating the impacts of such a massive project is difficult doesn’t mean that FERC may cut corners and ignore its important duty to the public. FERC should not proceed forward, sacrificing family land and other private property, without fully analyzing this destructive and unnecessary pipeline.”  
Lara Mack, Virginia Field Organizer, Appalachian Voices, 540-246-9720. lara@appovices.org.
“FERC woefully underestimated the impacts the Mountain Valley Pipeline will have on the Appalachian mountains, wildlife habitat, water resources, and communities. If FERC did it’s job correctly, with the public interest in mind, it would see this project for what it is —  a dangerous boondoggle.”
Andrew Downs, Regional Director, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, 540.904.4354, adowns@appalachiantrail.org.
“Through a deficient level of planning and environmental impact assessment, the MVP project represents a threat not only to the purpose and values of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail but, by undermining the United States Forest Services’ protection of the AT, it represents a fundamental and existential threat to the entire National Trails System”
Anne Havemann, General Counsel, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, 240-396-1984, anne@chesapeakeclimate.org.
“FERC’s draft environmental review utterly ignores the pipeline’s full impacts on the climate. The limited–and opaque–review fails to fully account for methane pollution from increased fracking that the pipeline would trigger, from leakage along the route, and from the ultimate burning of the gas. The pipeline would fail the White House’s climate test. FERC must revise its review to include the pipeline’s full lifecycle of climate pollution, and consider clean energy alternatives.”
Ellen Darden, POWHR Co-Chair,  Montgomery County, Va. 540-230-1091
greennrv.ellen@gmail.com.
“The people of Appalachia stand united in an unprecedented interstate coalition: Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR), to make clear to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the United States Forest Service, the US Army Corp of Engineers, US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management that Mountain Valley Pipeline has failed to establish a need for this destructive project.

FERC’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement summarily ignores the detailed, credentialed hydrogeologic, economic, historical preservation and cultural attachment research submitted by the POWHR coalition and hundreds of landowners opposed to MVP. Rather than interfering and obstructing public opposition to MVP, FERC must review the entire body of scientific research submitted and reject this project.”

Kirk A Bowers, PE, Pipelines Campaign Coordinator, VA Chapter, Sierra Club, 434.296.8673, kirk.bowers@sierraclub.org.
“The Draft EIS is blatantly biased. It makes sweeping unsubstantiated claims of the need for the pipeline while dismissing any and all potential adverse effects. The applicant provides cursory responses to data requests in a perfunctory manner without analyses or serious consideration of the adverse effects of the proposed pipeline. The applicant has failed to make reasonable efforts to avoid and minimize adverse effects on communities, landowners and ecosystems impacted by the proposed pipeline. In light of the incompetent and unprofessional manner in which the application has been handled by MVP LLC, it is incumbent on FERC to reject the application.”
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