A group of landowners, conservation groups and a member of the Virginia House of Delegates brought a court challenge Monday to a state board’s finding that a natural gas pipeline would pose no danger to the streams and creeks that lie in its path.
The petition for review, filed in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, marks the second time the State Water Control Board has been sued over its Dec. 7 decision to issue a water quality certification for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, is listed as the first of 16 petitioners who contend the board lacked adequate information on which to find a “reasonable assurance” that the 303-mile long buried pipeline would not contaminate the waters of Western Virginia.
Like a similar challenge filed Dec. 8 by the Sierra Club and three other environmental organizations, the brief petition does not detail the grounds on which a challenge will be based. But in a statement announcing the court filing, the petitioners pointed to the different way in which the water board handled a permit sought by Mountain Valley and a second one that was granted the following week for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a similar project in Central Virginia.
Although the water board gave approval for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which is backed by Dominion Energy, it took the unusual step of delaying the effective date until several environmental impact reports are completed.
No such condition was made for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
“It makes no sense,” said Mara Robbins, a n organizer with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, one of the petitioners in the second court challenge.
“They delayed the ACP permitting until erosion and sedimentation reports are complete. Many of the issues presented were identical. Yet the permits for the ACP were delayed and the ones for the MVP were not? They need to go back to the drawing board and get this right.”
The Roanoke Times – Laurence Hammack – 12.18.2017
Posted by: Nelson Bailey
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