North Carolina Regulators Fail to Adequately Explain MVP Southgate Denial, Court Rules
North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) did not adequately explain its decision to deny a water quality certificate for Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC’s (MVP) Southgate expansion project, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a ruling handed down late last week granted a petition filed by MVP seeking to vacate the DEQ’s decision last August to deny state certification for the project.
MVP’s Southgate project would consist of 75 miles of 16-inch and 24-inch diameter line to extend the original 303-mile, 2 million Dth/d mainline project’s reach into North Carolina. At the time, the DEQ predicated its decision to deny the certification, required under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, on uncertainty surrounding the mainline project’s completion given multiple legal and regulatory setbacks.