Attached is a statement released today to the media by the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance taking strong exception to the letter sent on September 7 by the partner companies of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to the members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, urging that the agency expedite approval of the ACP yet this month, notwithstanding the absence of numerous analyses of the project’s impact on the environment.   That letter was sent to you last evening.

Our statement has been referenced in a release by the Associated Press that has appeared in numerous news outlets (including the Washington Post and Seattle Times) and was included in stories that ran late today in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Virginian-Pilot.  The latter two articles are posted on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/abralliance/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel)

Also just posted on our Facebook page is a story appearing today in the Charleston Gazette-Mail about the decision Thursday by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to vacate and remand its water quality certification for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.  The agency’s letter to the MVP said that the move would allow DEP “to reevaluate the complete application to determine whether the state’s certification is in compliance” with the federal Clean Water Act.  This is indeed encouraging news, which we hope the WV state regulators, as well as their counterparts in VA and NC, will heed in considering whether to certify the ACP as not endangering water quality in their respective states.

More on all of this in next week’s ABRA Update.

– Lew