Forest Service Issues Record of Decision for Fracked Gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline

RICHMOND, VA -- Today, the United States Forest Service issued a decision to allow the fracked gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) to proceed. The proposed pipeline would cut through wilderness, wetlands, and communities. In addition, the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was incomplete, failing to include critical information about impacts to wildlife habitat, endangered species, sedimentation, and other issues. This decision violates the Forest Service's obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, and the Mineral Leasing Act. The Sierra Club will challenge this decision and has already requested a rehearing from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of their approval of the pipeline.

Environmental groups and communities argue that the ACP will cause a slew of environmental harms, including cutting a new right-of-way through the Monongahela and George Washington National Forests. This unnecessary new right of way is one of the many reasons Sierra Club opposes the pipeline. The Mineral Leasing Act requires reuse of existing rights of way where practical, yet ACP did not review routes through existing right of ways that could minimize forest fragmentation and impacts on wildlife. The EIS also understated impacts on erosion, sedimentation, and thus water quality, largely by using an unrealistic estimate of how effective erosion control measures would be. Furthermore, the Forest Service's plan amendments violated the 2012 Forest Planning Rule.

In response, Kelly Martin, Director of the Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign for the Sierra Club, released the following statement:

"National forests, like our communities, deserve protection, not a roughshod review and hasty approval to be cut down for an unnecessary fossil fuel project. The Forest Service and FERC have failed to show there is a need for a new right of way for this project--or for this pipeline at all. Dirty, dangerous fracked gas pipelines like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline threaten our health, prosperity, communities and public lands. The Forest Service’s decision to rubber-stamp this fracked gas project violates the agency’s duty to steward our public lands.”