MDN told you last month that the US Forest Service, drunk on its own power, vetoed a path through a few miles of national forests for the $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (see US Forest Service Blocks Atlantic Coast Pipeline in National Forests). Using cow nob salamanders and red spruce as their excuse, USFS said “nyet comrade” to Dominion in their quest to build a natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina. Dominion had requested a special permit to cross teeny tiny sections of the Monongahela and George Washington national forests in West Virginia and Virginia. So now what? Last week Dominion announced an alternate route for the pipeline (see map below) that avoids most of (not all of) the forests–adding another 30 miles to the 564-mile pipeline, and disrupting 249 landowners in Pocahontas and Randolph counties who will now need to sign easements to allow the pipeline across their land. All to avoid a few miles of forestland. Here’s the latest on the mighty Atlantic Coast Pipeline, re-routed because of a salamander…
