North Carolina denies permit for Mountain Valley Pipeline extension
Laurence Hammack 16 hrs ago

Citing uncertainty over whether the Mountain Valley Pipeline will ever be completed, North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality has denied a water quality certification for an expansion of the natural gas pipeline.

Questions about whether the main pipeline will regain its suspended permits present a “critical risk” to the so-called Southgate extension, the DEQ said Tuesday.

“Given the uncertain future of the MVP Mainline, North Carolinians should not be exposed to the risk of another incomplete pipeline project” and the environmental problems it would bring, Michael Regan, secretary of the department, said in a written statement.

In the nearly three years since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the mainline project — which is planned to run for 303 miles from northern West Virginia to Southside Virginia — three sets of key permits have been set aside after legal battles over the pipeline’s environmental effects.

FERC in June approved the Southgate extension, which will reach another 75 miles from the pipeline’s terminus in Chatham into North Carolina, but ruled that construction could not begin until MVP had its permits in hand.

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More than two years into the arduous task of building a natural gas pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia, Mountain Valley Pipeline has

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