ROANOKE, Va. — A federal appellate court issued a stay, temporarily halting the Mountain Valley Pipeline from doing any construction through streams and wetlands in both West Virginia and Virginia.
The stays were issued by U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Oct. 16 in the two appeals court cases — one for West Virginia and one for Virginia.
"Upon review of submissions relative to the Motion for Temporary Administrative Stay, the motion is granted in order to permit time for the court to fully consider the Motion to Stay," Clerk Patricia S. Connor wrote in the orders. "The Temporary Administrative Stay shall remain in effect until such time as the court has ruled on the Motion for Stay."
Several conservation groups, including the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Wild Virginia, Appalachian Voices and Chesapeake Climate Action Network, appealed to the appellate court last month hoping to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline from continuing after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reissued permits to allow the pipeline to cross waterways in both states.
The conservation groups sought for the Army Corps to reconsider its approval, but the Corps denied requests for an administrative stay on Oct. 5. The groups note in the motion for a temporary stay that Mountain Valley Pipeline’s operator told its investors that it intends to blast and trench through critical streams "as quickly as possible before anything is challenged," according to the court document.
"Mountain Valley Pipeline’s haste necessitates a temporary administrative stay of the Reinstatement to allow this Court sufficient time to consider the pending stay motion," the conservation groups argue.
The court agreed to grant the temporary motion.
Last month, the conservation groups filed the suit asking the appellate court to review the permits the Army Corps approved. The court had previously tossed out the approval of the permits in 2018.
Mountain Valley Pipeline opposes the stay and had agreed not to cross any of the streams or wetlands until Oct. 17 after a previous agreement, the court documents state. That part of the project is not put on hold.
The pipeline project is a natural gas pipeline system that goes across more than 300 miles in West Virginia and Virginia. The natural gas is from Marcellus and Utica shale production. As of June, MVP’s total project work was approximately 92 percent complete.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit case numbers: 20-2039, 20-2042
