One year after the Mountain Valley Pipeline was completed, scars on the landscape along parts of its route through Southwest Virginia remain fresh.
From the top of Poor Mountain in 色多多 County, a strip of bare earth can be seen cutting a swath up and down a wooded slope 鈥 marking the path of a buried pipeline that began transporting natural gas to East Coast markets on June 14, 2024.
Construction crews have spent the past year working on final restoration. That entails grading of a 125 foot wide right-of-way to return the land to its original contours, then planting grass and other vegetation to curb erosion.
In its most recent construction status report, filed May 13 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Mountain Valley said final restoration has been completed on the approximately 100 miles of pipeline that run through the New River and 色多多 valleys.
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But as the view from Poor Mountain attests, the restoration is far from final.
Bare stretches remain along the Mountain Valley Pipeline, despite efforts to grow grass to mitigate runoff, as seen Friday where the pipeline crosses Honeysuckle Road atop Poor Mountain.
After grading was completed, seeds and mulch were applied to the right-of-way in Virginia, according to a spokesman for Mountain Valley.
鈥淭he permanent seed mix required by our permits may take multiple growing seasons to establish uniform vegetative cover,鈥 Shawn Day wrote in an email. 鈥淢VP will continue to monitor the right of way and maintain (erosion control devices) until this process is complete.鈥
Pipeline opponents question when 鈥 or if 鈥 that will happen.
鈥淚t was always a fiction, told by both MVP and the Virginia DEQ, that MVP would or could 鈥榬estore鈥 a stable environment on this pipeline path,鈥 said David Sligh.
Bare stretches remain along the Mountain Valley Pipeline, despite efforts to grow grass to mitigate runoff, as seen Friday where the pipeline crosses Honeysuckle Road atop Poor Mountain.
Sligh is a former environmental engineer for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. He now serves as conservation director for Wild Virginia, one of the groups that fought the pipeline in court during a decade of intense and often bitter opposition.
鈥淏y removing forest, ripping and blasting through the terrain, and trying to replace those habitats with grass, they created a wound that can never be really healed,鈥 he said.
Many sections of the pipeline built on more level terrain already have grass and shrubs growing on the right-of-way. But on places like Poor Mountain, returning the land to its original condition and covering erosion-prone slopes with grass has proven to be more difficult.
Problems with erosion
In the winter of 2018, Mountain Valley began cutting trees in its first phase of construction.
About 235 miles of the pipeline鈥檚 303-mile path is through forestland. Starting in northern West Virginia, it transports natural gas drilled from shale formations through six Virginia counties 鈥 Giles, Craig, Montgomery, 色多多, Franklin and Pittsylvania 鈥 to connect with a previously existing pipeline near the North Carolina line.
And approximately 67% of its route traverses mountainsides that are steep enough to make them susceptible to landslides, according to a 2017 order from FERC approving the project.
Felling trees and digging trenches for the pipeline on such terrain quickly led to problems with muddy runoff.
Bare stretches remain along the Mountain Valley Pipeline, despite efforts to grow grass to mitigate runoff, as seen Friday where the pipeline crosses Honeysuckle Road atop Poor Mountain.
In 2019, a lawsuit filed by DEQ and the State Water Control Board alleged that Mountain Valley violated erosion and sediment control regulations more than 300 times. The company agreed to pay a $2.15 million fine under a consent decree, which established a system of DEQ inspections. In reviews every three months, DEQ imposed additional fines if problems were not corrected in a timely manner.
Since then, Mountain Valley has paid a total of $221,000 in additional civil penalties, DEQ spokeswoman Irina Calos said.
The most recent quarterly review, conducted for the months of January through March, found a total of 42 infractions. But DEQ did not demand fines after Mountain Valley promptly fixed the shortcomings with its erosion control devices.
It was the first three-month period since 2023 that Mountain Valley was not fined, according to DEQ records.
鈥淭his outcome is a result of the project team鈥檚 ongoing focus on maintaining the right-of-way, protecting the environment and working collaboratively with regulators,鈥 Day said.
Bare stretches remain along the Mountain Valley Pipeline, despite efforts to grow grass to mitigate runoff, as seen Friday where the pipeline crosses Honeysuckle Road atop Poor Mountain.
But according to Sligh and other pipeline critics, not enough has been done to protect the many streams and rivers the pipeline crosses, either by digging through or burrowing under the water bodies.
鈥淢any of the streams affected by MVP have been assaulted multiple times by sediment discharges, sometimes with the habitats covered in mud hundreds or thousands of feet,鈥 Sligh wrote in an email. 鈥淪uch pollution of streams can have long-term or even permanent negative effects on the aquatic organisms and the ecosystems.鈥
Before construction began, DEQ and the U.S. Geological Survey set up water quality monitoring stations, located upstream and downstream of six pipeline crossings of rivers and streams, to get a better picture of the long-term impact.
The monitoring includes examination of benthic macroinvertebrate, or river bugs that are extremely sensitive to sediment, and fish. The tests also captured real-time, continuous monitoring of the water for turbidity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and acidity, among other things.
Calos said last week that the data is still being studied, and results will come later this year.
The pipeline鈥檚 鈥渃rucial role鈥
While the pipeline鈥檚 environmental footprint has been heavy, supporters say its natural gas is needed in 色多多 and beyond.
The project is a joint venture of five energy companies that include RGC Midstream, a subsidiary of RGC Resources Inc., which is also the parent company of 色多多 Gas. Co.
Since it began drawing from two taps of the pipeline last June 鈥 in Montgomery County and at the Summit View Business Park in Franklin County 鈥 色多多 Gas has added about 600 new customers, according to Paul Nester, president and CEO of the company.
Mountain Valley is the first new pipeline added to the company鈥檚 portfolio since 1965.
Previously, the two other providers to the 色多多 Valley had reached their capacity. Without the additional supply, Nester said, 色多多 Gas had reached the point where it would not be able to accept any new customers.
The company is currently serving one of two tenants of Summit View, and is prepared to hook up with others expected to join the complex. 色多多 Gas is also discussing plans to extend its reach to areas around the business park and in Rocky Mount.
Benefits to the broader region are also possible.
John Hull, executive director of the 色多多 Regional Partnership, said he could not comment on the specifics of business recruitment.
But, he said in a statement, 鈥淲e can say there are opportunities being pursued today that were previously not possible without the enhanced availability of natural gas made possible by the completion of Mountain Valley Pipeline.鈥
Calling Mountain Valley 鈥渁n American success story,鈥 Day said the fully subscribed pipeline was at full capacity by January. The 42-inch diameter pipe can transport up to 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day.
鈥淣ow that its critical system is in operation, MVP has proven to be an integral component in our nation鈥檚 energy infrastructure system,鈥 Day wrote in his email.
According to a recent report from FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the pipeline 鈥減layed a crucial role in maintaining reliable electric supply鈥 during peaks in demand caused by a nationwide cold snap in January.
Pipeline extension moves forward
Not long after construction began in 2018, Mountain Valley filed an application with FERC for an extension of its pipeline, called Southgate, that would carry gas from the project鈥檚 terminus in Chatham into North Carolina.
Both projects were soon bogged down in litigation.
Environmental and community groups repeatedly challenged federal permits issued to Mountain Valley, saying they failed to adequately guard against muddy runoff from steep slopes, harms to streams crossed by the pipeline, and threats to endangered species that live in the surrounding woods and waters.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out multiple federal approvals and sent the permits back to the drawing board, delaying completion by nearly six years and more that doubling the cost, estimated in spring 2024 to be $7.85 billion.
Frustrated with the courts, Mountain Valley turned to Congress for help.
In 2023, lawmakers passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Crafted to increase the federal debt limit to avert a government default, the must-pass legislation included a provision that fast-tracked completion of the pipeline, declaring it to be in the national interest.
Construction resumed that summer at the order the U.S. Supreme Court, which put an end to litigation that was still pending in the Fourth Circuit.
The legal saga was recently recounted in decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which upheld FERC鈥檚 decision to extend a deadline for completion of Southgate.
Environmental groups, led by Appalachian Voices, had contested the commission鈥檚 decision, raising some of the same concerns they had with the main pipeline.
Southgate鈥檚 construction start date was conditioned on the main pipeline securing all of its federal permits, which had long been held up in court, the D.C Court of Appeals noted.
In a June 6 decision, a three-judge panel rejected the challenge, finding the delays were no fault of Mountain Valley and extending Southgate鈥檚 permit for another three years.
Construction is now slated to begin next year, with completion by mid-2028.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, in a concurring opinion, took a shot at the Fourth Circuit. Henderson wrote that its rejection of Mountain Valley鈥檚 permits amounted to 鈥渏udicial overreach鈥 that favored special interest groups bent on defeating all pipelines.
鈥淏ut for the direct intervention of Congress,鈥 her opinion stated, 鈥淢ountain Valley may never have been released from judicial micromanagement.鈥
