October 2, 2018: Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water Act for the fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). The ruling revokes MVP’s authority to construct its pipeline through waterways in the Corps’ Huntington District, and implicates MVP’s ability to trench through streams and wetlands anywhere along its route Attorneys from Appalachian Mountain Advocates argued the case on behalf of the Sierra Club, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Appalachian Voices, and Chesapeake Climate Action Network. The case was argued before a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit just last Friday.
Because the MVP’s certificate from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) specifies that all necessary permits must be in place before the project can proceed anywhere, MVP must also halt work along its entire route. Read more here.
In response ELP Senior Attorney Nathan Matthews released the following statement:
"On Tuesday the Fourth Circuit affirmed that neither Mountain Valley Pipeline nor federal agencies can ignore or rewrite rules put in place to protect the environment. Mountain Valley Pipeline's inappropriate efforts to use Nationwide Permit 12 for an unprecedentedly large and destructive pipeline are yet another case of Mountain Valley trying to skip over steps that would shine a light on this harmful project. Because Mountain Valley once again is lacking a permit essential to construction of the pipeline, FERC should once again order a halt to all pipeline construction."