Photo courtesy of Russell Chisholm
Thanks to the opposition of the Sierra Club and its coalition partners, the Mountain Valley Pipeline is having a month from hell. First, Virginia's attorney general announced that the pipeline’s developers must pay a $2.15 million penalty for committing more than 300 violations of clean water protections and imposed "additional layers of tough oversight and accountability." According to Attorney General Mark Herring, "This is one of the most significant financial penalties ever imposed in Virginia for this kind of case."
Then, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered all construction on the pipeline to “cease immediately” because the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Sierra Club attorneys’ request for a stay of two necessary permits related to the Endangered Species Act.
"As we’ve seen -- and said -- time and time again, there is no right way to build this dirty, dangerous fracked gas pipeline, full stop," said Sierra Club Virginia Chapter Director Kate Addleson. "This penalty shows that MVP’s construction standards were never anywhere close to protecting our land, water, and communities."
The Sierra Club and a diverse coalition of grassroots groups have been fighting the pipeline for five years. “The rush to build this unnecessary and harmful pipeline has [already] polluted drinking water, harmed livelihoods, triggered landslides, and further threatened already-endangered species," said Anne Havemann, General Counsel for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
If completed as planned, the Mountain Valley Pipeline would threaten over a thousand bodies of water and numerous endangered species. It would bisect the Appalachian Trail and descrecrate forests, long-held homes and family farms, and Native American burial grounds.
Communities along the pipeline’s path in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina agree: What’s needed is a transition to renewable energy, not more fossil fuel infrastructure that contributes to climate change and poisons their lands and waters. The pipeline, if completed, could commit the region to decades of dependence on dirty fuels -- even though solar and wind power are now cheaper than building new gas infrastructure in two-thirds of the world,
Despite this month’s setbacks, Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC wants to keep building its unwanted, unnecessary pipeline. We’ve been fighting them for five years already. The project is currently two years behind schedule and an anticipated $2 billion over budget, and many are wondering if it will even be finished at all.
"Time after time, we have said MVP should stop work on this pipeline," said Sierra Club attorney Elly Benson. "And time after time, the courts have agreed. Maybe now MVP will do the smart thing and walk away from this disastrous fracked gas pipeline once and for all.”