Pipeline companies anxious to begin tree clearing

Sep 29, 2017 | For Landowners, Pipelines, Politics of energy

The two joint ventures planning to route 42-inch diameter natural gas pipelines through forests and fields long to hear the whining roar and chatter of chainsaws felling trees.

Both the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline hope to start clearing trees in mid-November from construction rights-of-way for the buried pipelines. There is an urgency to get started: The projects plan to suspend felling trees after March 31 to comply with federal conservation guidelines tied to potential impacts to the Indiana bat, a federally endangered species, and the northern long-eared bat, a threatened species.

Restricting tree clearing to the period from mid-November to the end of March also protects some species of migratory birds that nest during other months of the year.

Aaron Ruby, a spokesman for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, said Wednesday that the project’s timeline, and the project itself, could suffer if tree clearing activities don’t get underway during this period, which could mean waiting until mid-November 2018 to fire up chainsaws and other tree-felling equipment.

“It’s important that we do all the tree clearing and grading this season,” Ruby said. “It’s an important window and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Each project plans to clear all vegetation from a temporary construction right-of-way that would be 125 feet wide in most terrain. The permanently treeless rights-of-way would be 50 feet in most places.

Both pipelines are interstate projects and thus require approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In a letter to FERC dated Sept. 7, top executives for three of the companies involved in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline asked FERC’s commissioners to issue an order in September to approve the project “so that initial construction activities and tree clearing can begin in November and conclude in early 2018 as described in the final [environmental impact statement].”

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The Roanoke Times – Duncan Adams – 09.28.2017

Posted by Nelson Bailey

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