With obstacles to the embattled Mountain Valley Pipeline falling away, its operators are attempting to pump new life into a proposed extension that would move a projected 375 million cubic feet of natural gas through the Triad daily.
That’s enough fuel to serve more than 2.2 million average U.S. homes for a day.
In a filing Thursday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Mountain Valley requests an extension of a required Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for its planned 75-mile MVP Southgate Extension, now set to expire Sunday, through June 2026.
The proposed $500 million Southgate Extension would pick up where the Mountain Valley Pipeline stops in southern Virginia, run through the heart of Rockingham County and end in Alamance County.
But that can only happen with the completion of the main 303-mile Mountain Valley project, which paused in early 2022 when courts nullified a handful of environmental permits.
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The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality emphasized the coupling of the two projects when it rejected water-quality permits for the Southgate project in August 2020.
“In essence, it would be a pipeline from nowhere to nowhere incapable of carrying any natural gas, and certainly not able to fulfill its basic project purpose, while having no practical alternative,” NCDEQ said in explaining its permit denial. “Prior to incurring any impacts to North Carolina natural resources … a level of certainty regarding the completion of the MVP Mainline pipeline is required.”
Those prospects certainly changed last month when the stalled $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline – which would carry natural gas about 300 miles from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia across nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands before ending in Pittsylvania County, Virginia – was jumpstarted in a deal between President Joe Biden and Republicans to raise the federal debt ceiling.
The measure included a provision requiring fast-tracked approvals for the Mountain Valley, whose completion has been held up by regulatory hurdles and legal challenges.
The pact infuriated environmentalists, as does the resulting potential opening for the extension.
“This Southgate pipeline is not in the public interest and the developers have not demonstrated its viability,” Jessica Sims, field coordinator for the group Appalachian Voices, said Thursday. “Its threats remain — from disproportionately impacting environmental justice communities along the pipeline route to endangering the waterways it would cross. Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate should not have a future.”
The main pipeline project has been hit with dozens of water-quality violations and hundreds of thousands of dollars in related fines. Environmentalists insist there’s no reason to expect anything different in North Carolina.
In its filing Thursday, Mountain Valley says it is expecting to complete and activate the mainline by the end of this year.
However, without the same fast-tracking considerations tied to the Mountain Valley, the Southgate Extension will face regulatory hurdles and almost-certain legal challenges.
The company declined to give a potential timeline for the extension.
“Mountain Valley remains committed to the MVP Southgate project and continues to evaluate its options to help meet strong residential and business demand for affordable, reliable natural gas,” spokesman Shawn Day said in an email to the Journal. “There is no update or estimate for construction start or in-service dates available at this time.”
Both projects have divided political leaders largely along party lines, with Republicans overwhelmingly in support of the pipelines and Democrats, including Gov. Roy Cooper, generally opposed.
“Completing the Mountain Valley Pipeline will help bring a second interstate natural gas pipeline to North Carolina,” N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger of Rockingham County said in an email to the Journal when asked about the project last year. “Hopefully Gov. Cooper will reconsider his previous opposition to increased energy security and support this opportunity to lower energy costs and provide manufacturers and residents in North Carolina with reliable access to natural gas.”
Republicans in the N.C. General Assembly have argued that relying solely on the existing Transco Pipeline — which also slices through the heart of the Triad — as a primary natural gas supply puts the state’s energy production at risk.
Democrats…
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