Tag: Appalachian Trail

Justices Revive Permit For Pipeline Under Appalachian Trail

The Supreme Court sided with energy companies and the Trump administration Monday in reinstating a critical permit for a proposed natural gas pipeline that would cross under the Appalachian Trail.

The justices ruled 7-2 to throw out a lower court ruling that had canceled the permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. It would bring natural gas from West Virginia to growing markets in Virginia and North Carolina. Its supporters say the pipeline would bring economic development, thousands of jobs and reduced energy costs for consumers.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a majority of the court that the “Forest Service had the authority to issue the permit here.” Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

Other legal issues remain before construction of the pipeline could begin. The narrow question before the Supreme Court was whether the U.S. Forest Service has the authority to grant rights-of-way through lands crossed by the Appalachian Trail within national forests, as project developers Dominion Energy and Duke Energy and the Trump administration argued.

The pipeline would run in part through the George Washington National Forest, where a 0.1-mile segment of the pipeline would cross about 600 feet (about 183 meters) beneath the Appalachian Trail.

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups had argued that because the 2,200-mile (3,540-kilometer) scenic trail from Georgia to Maine is considered a unit of the National Park System, no federal agency can grant a right-of-way for the pipeline. They say only Congress can approve such a crossing.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the environmentalists in 2018 and threw out a special-use permit  for the 605-mile (974-kilometer) natural gas pipeline. The appeals court relied on a century-old law, the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act, in finding that the Forest Service does not have authority to grant rights-of-way for pipelines on federal land in the National Park System.

The project has had numerous setbacks since plans were first announced in 2014. Legal challenges brought by environmental groups have prompted the dismissal or suspension of eight permits and halted construction for more than a year.

The project is more than three years behind schedule and its original price tag has nearly doubled to $8 billion.

Dominion says the pipeline will bring a critical new gas supply to Virginia and North Carolina to support the shift away from coal and toward intermittent natural resources like solar. The company also says greater availability of natural gas will attract manufacturing businesses.

Environmental groups say the pipeline would scar pristine landscapes, put numerous rivers and streams at risk of increased sedimentation and harm sensitive species.

W.Va. AG Morrisey Files Amicus Brief Urging Supreme Court To Overturn ACP Ruling

 

A group of 18 states, led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that blocked construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline under the Appalachian Trail. 

In an amicus brief filed Monday, Morrisey argued if a December 2018 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is upheld, the 1,000 miles of federal land along the Appalachian Trail would become off limits to this and other natural gas pipelines and into “a near-impenetrable barrier to energy development.”

Last December, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the U.S. Forest Service should not have granted the 600-mile natural gas pipeline a permit to cross under national forest lands, including the Appalachian Trail. 

Judge Stephanie Thacker cited Dr. Suess’ “The Lorax” in the opinion and said the agency failed to examine environmental impacts of the project when it issued the approval. 

“We trust the United States Forest Service to ‘speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,'” Thacker wrote. “A thorough review of the record leads to the necessary conclusion that the Forest Service abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources.”

The court threw out the pipeline’s right of way for the Appalachian Trail and found that the Forest Service does not have the authority to grant the Atlantic Coast Pipeline approval to cross under it. 

The ruling could have big impacts for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s route. Pipeline developer Dominion Energy appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In the friend of the court brief, Morrisey and 17 other state attorneys general said, if upheld, the lower court’s ruling could turn all federal trails into barriers to energy development.

Environmental groups who brought the case, including Cowpasture River Preservation Association, Sierra Club and others, argue in a brief filed with the Supreme Court that the 4th Circuit’s ruling should stand. 

In addition to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s Appalachian Trail right-of-way, other permits and issues remain unresolved before the project can resume construction. 

Oral arguments in the case are set for Feb. 24, 2020.

Court Throws Out Forest Service Approvals for Atlantic Coast Pipeline

A federal court today ruled the U.S. Forest Service improperly granted permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross under national forest lands, including the Appalachian Trail.

In her 60-page opinion, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephanie Thacker bashed the agency for failing to protect federal land when it issued approvals to allow the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross the George Washington National Forest, Monongahela National Forest and the Appalachian Trail.

“We trust the United States Forest Service to ‘speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,'” Thacker wrote, invoking Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax.” “A thorough review of the record leads to the necessary conclusion that the Forest Service abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources.”

Concluding remarks from 4th Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker’s opinion.

The opinion finds the Forest Service violated both the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. For example, the judge agreed with environmental groups’ arguments that the Forest Service shirked its responsibilities under NEPA by not doing an analysis of whether the pipeline could be approved with a route that goes outside of the national forest lands. The agency argued that FERC was responsible for that analysis in its environmental assessment, but, as the court notes, “no such analysis is apparent anywhere in the record.”

Thacker said the agency repeatedly expressed serious concerns about the environmental impacts of the multi-billion dollar natural gas pipeline project, which crosses West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.

But, she continued, those concerns were “suddenly, and mysteriously assuaged in time to meet a private pipeline company’s deadlines.”

“I think what happened here is for years the Forest Service was asking tough questions about this project and requesting additional information and it turned on a dime when the Trump administration came into power,” said Patrick Hunter, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which was one of the groups that filed the original lawsuit in February. “Federal agencies can change their minds, but they have to good reasons for doing it and they didn’t have a good reason to change their mind and turn on a dime like this and I think that came through in this decision-making.”

The court’s opinion also clarifies that the Forest Service does not have the authority to grant the Atlantic Coast Pipeline the approval to cross under the Appalachian Trail. Following that reasoning, the panel of appellate court judges tossed the agency’s approvals granting the project’s right of way for the Appalachian Trail.

Hunter said the ACP’s developer, Dominion Energy, will not have to rethink the project’s route and if that is the case, other federal agency permits and approvals may have to be reexamined.

“The pipeline route that Dominion has chosen cannot be approved as of right now, and so if they want to keep working on this thing, they’re going to have to go back to the drawing board,” he said. “All of the agencies that have to issue approvals for this pipeline — their approvals depend on this one pipeline route. And since that can no longer be built as planned, I think that calls all of those other approvals into question.”

Aaron Ruby, a spokesman for the project, said in a statement that Dominion strongly disagrees with the court’s ruling and the developers intend to immediately appeal the court’s decision to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. 

“Under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, for decades, 56 other oil and gas pipelines have operated across the [Appalachian Trail],” Ruby said. “This opinion brings into question whether or not these existing pipelines can remain in place.”

Currently, all construction along the ACP’s route has been stopped following a separate decision from the 4th Circuit, which stayed the pipeline’s revised Biological Opinion and Incidental Take Statement, a key permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Appalachian Trail's Harpers Ferry Center Sees Record Number of Hikers

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy says a record number of thru-hikers have stopped at its visitor center in Harpers Ferry this year.

Thru-hikers are those who walk the entire trail, which runs 2,190 miles from Georgia to Maine.

As of December, the conservancy says 1,385 northbound thru-hikers and 192 southbound thru-hikers passed through the center. The number of northbound hikers was up 9 percent from 2014, while the number of southbound hikers increased by 14 percent.

The conservancy says in a news release that the increase in thru-hikers is partially because of two recent movies depicting hikes on the trail, “A Walk in the Woods” and “Wild.”

Hikers stop in Harpers Ferry to be photographed in front of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s sign outside the visitor center.

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