A disputed gas pipeline into NC appeared blocked, but now maybe not | Opinion

The U.S. debt-ceiling deal may contain a surprise in North Carolina that environmentalists don’t want – a natural gas pipeline passing through the north-central portion of the state.

To secure Sen. Joe Manchin’s support for the deal, President Joe Biden promised the West Virginia Democrat that he would expedite approvals for the 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, now blocked by multiple lawsuits and regulatory issues. The $6.6 billion project, known as the MVP, would carry fracked natural gas from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia into Virginia.

Plans for the pipeline included a southern spur known as the MVP Southgate. The underground spur would travel almost 75 miles from southern Virginia into central North Carolina, with about 40 miles of it passing through Rockingham and Alamance counties before terminating southeast of Graham. The project’s operator is Equitrans Midstream.

But as soaring costs and legal delays raised doubts about whether the MVP would be completed, plans for the Southgate portion were largely abandoned. Now with the MVP gaining new support, the North Carolina extension may also be revived.

Spencer Gall, a Southern Environmental Law Center attorney based in Virginia, said, “I think North Carolina should expect to see a renewed effort to build Southgate.”

Shawn Day, an MVP Southgate spokesman, said, “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.”

This is bad news for North Carolina’s environment and the state’s efforts to slow climate change. Constructing the Southgate pipeline will disturb wildlife habitats, cause a loss of trees and intrude into buffer areas that protect Jordan Lake, a key source of water for the Triangle. The pipeline also would increase fracking for gas in West Virginia. That process releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere at a rate 25 times greater than carbon dioxide.

Day could not say if or when efforts to build the pipeline might resume. “The project team continues to evaluate options,” he said.

Those options may be more appealing now not only because of Biden’s green light for the MVP, but because the U.S. Supreme Court recently significantly narrowed the definition of wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act. A bill moving forward in the General Assembly would restrict North Carolina regulators to protecting only wetlands covered by the federal definition, eliminating more extensive state protections.

In 2020, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) denied a water quality permit for the Southgate pipeline. The agency said allowing construction and related damage to streams and buffer areas of Jordan Lake was not justified since MVP itself might never be completed. DEQ’s objections might disappear with the renewed likelihood that the MVP will be completed, but DEQ has not received new or resubmitted permit applications regarding the Southgate extension.

Supporters of MVP say distributing more gas will drive down natural gas prices that spiked with the start of the war in Ukraine. But Ridge Graham of the environmental group Appalachian Voices program said damage from the pipeline will endure after price surges fade. “Temporary price hikes due to poor weatherization and foreign wars shouldn’t justify increased costs to customers and increased risks to our communities and water supplies for the next several decades,” he said.

North Carolina avoided the costs of the proposed 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline when rising costs and opposition from local landowners and environmentalists caused the project to be canceled in 2020. Now, thanks to Manchin’s commitments to the fossil fuel industry, another unneeded, hugely over budget and environmentally damaging pipeline may be coming to North Carolina.

With luck, this one will also be pulled down by protectors of the environment and the weight of its own folly.

This story was originally published June 13, 2023 at 4:30 AM with the headline "A disputed gas pipeline into NC appeared blocked, but now maybe not | Opinion."