FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 30, 2023
CONTACT
Dan Radmacher, Media Specialist, (540) 798-6683, dan@appvoices.org
Yesterday, developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline announced a dramatic reduction in their plans for the pipeline’s Southgate extension.
In an end-of-year Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Equitrans Midstream said they were halving their plans for the pipeline’s MVP Southgate extension from 75 miles to 31 and cutting down the number of water crossings by removing Alamance County, North Carolina, from the route. The developers are also dropping plans for a new polluting compressor station in Pittsylvania County. In 2021, the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board denied the proposed compressor station’s air permit on environmental justice grounds. The plans announced yesterday are not final. The developer said it expects “to finalize the scope of the redesigned project after it conducts an open season and executes any additional agreements for firm capacity.”
Unable to secure any necessary state permits, developers had recently requested and received an extension for their Federal Energy Regulatory Commission certificate through 2026, which would expire before Equitrans’ new estimated 2028 completion date for Southgate. It is unclear why developers represented the project in its original scope to federal agencies when asking for the permit extension, only to announce significant changes 10 days after FERC’s approval.
Statement by North Carolina Program Manager Ridge Graham:
“The recent decision by FERC to extend Southgate’s federal certificate was dependent on the pipeline having a contract with another entity to buy the gas. With a wholly new project that requires an ‘open season’ to find customers, FERC should cancel the original Southgate Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity and send the developers back to the drawing board.”
Statement by Virginia Field Coordinator Jessica Sims:
“Mountain Valley Pipeline and its Southgate extension have been poorly conceived from the beginning, but today some of the communities in harm’s way can breathe easier. We know these changes resulted from sustained opposition to this unnecessary methane gas pipeline and its Southgate extension, and our opposition continues.”
