West Virginia Withdraws Mountain Valley Natural Gas Pipeline Certification

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has withdrawn its approval of EQT Corporation's (NYSE: EQT) (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline system. Scott Mandirola, director of the department's Division of Water and Waste Management, said in a September 7 letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it has vacated and remanded the state's water quality certification for the project that was issued in March.

"This decision will allow the agency to reevaluate the complete application to determine whether the state's certification is in compliance with Section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act," Mandirola wrote.

The pipeline system will span 303 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. Industrial Info is tracking four active projects that are linked to the pipeline, which would transport up to 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas sourced in the Marcellus and Utica shales to the existing Transcontinental Gas Pipeline system. The project is a joint venture of units of EQT and NextEra Energy Resources Incorporated (NYSE:NEE) (Juno Beach, Florida) and three other companies.

For more information, see Industrial Info's project report and February 3, 2017, article - EQT Continues Permitting Process for Mountain Valley Natural Gas Pipeline.

In June, five environmental groups filed a challenge to West Virginia's water quality certification in the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, saying the pipeline would cross streams more than 600 times in West Virginia and poses an environmental threat. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate the water quality certification and require the state to reconsider whether the project can go forward in compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.

Currently, construction is expected to kick off in November this year, with completion in late 2018. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued the final environmental impact statement for the project on June 23. For related information, see June 12, 2017, article - FERC Eyes Restoration of Quorum, Resumption of Rulings.

The Associated Press quoted a spokesman for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection as saying the information that was used to issue the water quality certification "needs to be further evaluated and possibly enhanced."

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