ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - The Mountain Valley Pipeline is dealing with what opponents of the project say is another serious setback.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission deadlocked 2-2 Tuesday on the project’s request to bore under streams and wetlands along the pipeline’s first 77 miles in West Virginia, the Roanoke Times reported. The tied vote meant the matter was left unresolved.
Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for the joint venture of five energy companies building the pipeline, said FERC could revisit the stream-crossing issue. The developers still plan to have the $6 billion project completed by the end of the year, Cox told the newspaper.
But Gillian Giannetti, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the development was a significant setback.
“MVP is in a holding pattern, and there’s no clear end in sight,” she said.
The project is designed to carry natural gas across about 300 miles of West Virginia and Virginia. A separate expansion project called MVP Southgate has been proposed to run from Virginia into North Carolina.
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