Tell FERC: No changing the rules for MVP!

Mountain Valley Pipeline has filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to amend its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity by allowing the company to skirt existing rules and change the way it will cross streams and wetlands for over 75 miles of the route.

Currently, MVP is unable to perform open water trench crossings as originally planned because a federal court has “stayed” the company’s Clean Water Act permit. MVP wants to rush this process and bore underneath these waters instead, often in unsuitable conditions on steep slopes.

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Help us protect our mountains, streams, and communities. Tell FERC to deny MVP’s amendment request! (Sign below!)

To: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
888 First Street NE, Room 1A
Washington, D.C. 20426
Re: Docket Number – CP21-12-000 Deny MVP’s request to amend Certificate

Dear Secretary Bose,

Appalachian Voices and our supporters, whose signatures can be found below, respectfully request that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission deny the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s request to amend their original Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. There has been no supplemental environmental analysis for the requested changes, and MVP’s request appears to be an attempt to circumvent restrictions resulting from the loss of water crossing permits.

The request from MVP is indicative of their approach to the project: altering plans at will, mid-construction, and requesting hundreds of variances from approved permit conditions. The company’s construction plan, and subsequent environmental impacts, continue to move further from the original, approved certificate. Now, audaciously, MVP is requesting to apply no standards, seeking the equivalent of a 77 mile-long variance. Without proper analysis, the public cannot know the severity of impacts to soil, steep slopes, streams and wetlands that dozens of conventional borings would bring.

MVP has provided no information regarding the frequency of dewatering and the amount of drilling mud needed to perform the conventional bore technique at over 40 sites. MVP also recently indicated via FERC filing that should their boring technique fail, their contingency plan is to “seek any necessary variances or applicable approvals to revise the proposed crossing method.”

The company already circumvented approved construction plans and should not receive a blank check to arbitrarily alter construction practices. The 2017 Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity clearly outlines what is approved and cannot be altered without evidence showing that water quality will not be harmed.

Waterways in steep terrain and with karst geology are not suitable locations for boring, and longer crossings bring additional risk. Multiple requests by Intervenors for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement in response to granted variances have gone unanswered by the Commission in the original Docket CP16-10.

As construction proceeds, the plans and execution of these plans bears less and less resemblance to what was reviewed by the Commission, approved and used to inform other Federal and State agencies.

We respectfully ask that the request to amend the certificate be denied. If the FERC is seriously considering this amendment, we request that the Commission undertake a full Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that thoroughly addresses impacts from boring and is accompanied by a 90-day public comment period.

Thank you for consideration of our comments and any additional personal comments our supporters have submitted.

Sincerely,

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