Fourth Circuit strikes again: Atlantic Coast Pipeline permit vacated

In the latest in a string of decisions that have struck down key approvals for the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines, the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has thrown out Atlantic’s permit to cross the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The court ruled that the National Park Service’s decision to allow the pipeline under the parkway was “arbitrary and capricious.”

“Here, the agency decision is not accompanied by any explanation, let alone a satisfactory one,” the panel of judges wrote. “We find this lack of explanation particularly troubling given the evidence in the record indicating that the presence of the pipeline is inconsistent with and in derogation of the purposes of the parkway and the park system.”

The ruling comes more than two months after the same court invalidated a key approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and a little more than a week after it vacated a permit allowing the Mountain Valley Pipeline to cross U.S. Forest Service land. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered a halt to MVP construction Friday.

A spokesman for the Dominion Energy-led Atlantic Coast Pipeline did not respond to a request for comment Monday. However, the 4th Circuit judges made it clear that proceeding with construction now would place the project in violation of its FERC approval.

“As noted previously, FERC’s authorization for ACP to begin construction is conditioned on the existence of valid authorizations from both FWS and NPS,” the judges wrote. “Absent such authorizations, ACP, should it continue to proceed with construction, would violate FERC’s certificate of public convenience and necessity.”

Mountain Valley Pipeline, planned to be built from West Virginia into Pittsylvania County is led by EQT Midstream Partners of Pittsburgh, has already been flagged for a series of environmental violations in both states. The longer Atlantic Coast Pipeline is planned to run 600 miles from West Virginia into North Carolina and will carve through the center of Virginia.

“This is an example of what happens when dangerous projects are pushed through based on politics rather than science,” said Southern Environmental Law Center attorney DJ Gerken in a statement. “This pipeline project was flawed from the start and Dominion and Duke’s pressure tactics to avoid laws that protect our public lands, water and wildlife are now coming to light.”

The decision is sure to focus more attention on the meeting later this month of the Virginia State Water Control Board, which is weighing whether a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit is adequate to protect the hundreds of water crossings the pipelines will make in Virginia from blasting, trenching, drilling and other construction methods.

The meeting will come after widely shared photos of Mountain Valley Pipeline’s failures to control sediment, which have fouled nearby waterways.