“We Had to Destroy the Village In Order to Save It?” FERC Says Mountain Valley Pipeline “construction will best mitigate further environmental impacts”

This almost seems like a (bad) joke, but then again, Trump’s FERC is pretty…well, FERC’ed up, so apparently it’s serious. In short, as S&P Global Platt reports, “The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday lifted a stop-work order affecting most of the route of the 2 Bcf/day Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

The reasoning? According to the FERC order (see below) – and this almost seems like parody – “protection of the environment along the Project’s right-of-way is best served by modifying the Stop Work Order issued on August 3, 2018…construction is being authorized, with the exceptions note above, because construction will best mitigate further environmental impacts.” Whaaaaa? Is this kinda like “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” or what? Also of interest is the statement, “Based on the BLM’s determination that the route previously approved by all federal agencies provides the greatest level of collocation for an alternative crossing that is also practical, the specific route of the Project no longer seems in question.”

So basically, it appears to be full speed ahead for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), I guess, unless of course Gov. Northam and his administration take some action – yeah, I know, hahahahaha…right! – to stop it. Ugh…