Citizens File Formal Complaint with FERC; Call on State Water Control Board to Intervene and Insist that MVP License Be Revoked or Suspended

From Wild Virginia:

Citizens File Formal Complaint with FERC
Call on State Water Control Board to Intervene and Insist that MVP License Be Revoked or Suspended

On June 21, 2019, Wild Virginia, partner groups, and individuals filed a formal complaint against Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Complaint is based on MVP’s frequent and repeated violations of state and federal requirements, throughout work on the project.

“We are asking that FERC revoke or suspend the Certificate it issued to MVP,” said David Sligh of Wild Virginia. Through this formal process, parties can also intervene and the complainants are calling on the State Water Control Board to do so and insist that FERC do what its members decided they lack the authority to do – stop the project and defend Virginians and our resources. The Board meets next week, on June 27 and the parties want them to act on this issue at that time.

The FERC approval was based on a finding that MVP was able and willing to meet all requirements, protect the environment, and the people affected. “MVP has shown, through hundreds of blatant violations that is neither able nor willing to obey the law,” Sligh said.

The complaint is joined by the Indian Creek Watershed Association, Preserve Craig, Inc., Betty Werner, and Neal Laferriere. Werner and Laferriere are landowners who have reported ongoing problems and thelocally-based groups have seen all of their warnings about the damages MVP would cause come true.

When the Commission issued the Certificate allowing MVP to proceed, it said it “expected strict compliance…with any state and federal mandated conditions.” The citizens joining this complaint are asking the Commissioners at FERC to prove that they meant what they said.

Two categories of violations are cited in the complaint. First, is the continued construction on MVP despite the fact that federal licenses to cross waterbodies and the National Forest were rejected by a federal court. Second, MVP has violated a broad range of legal requirements meant to protect the environment, people, and property along its path.

Citizens have monitored the project from the start and shown that MVP doesn’t bother to install pollution controls until forced to do so and that those used are sometimes so poorly designed and maintained that they won’t work even when built according to plans. Findings of regulators in both West Virginia and Virginia of hundreds of violations show that MVP is not serious about protections but is focused solely on ramming this project through with little regard for anyone else’s interests. Even FERC inspectors have document many blatant violations – often with the same problems occurring time and again.

“What we have is regulators watching our waters get trashed and then trying to act. By the time that happens though it may be too late for some of our most valuable resource,” Sligh said.