The radical Sierra Club can claim a new temporary victory in its war to stop a major natural gas pipeline. We previously told you the Clubbers, who use money from donors to weaponize our own court system against us, convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to overturn permits issued by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that allows EQT Midstream’s 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline to cross 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest in West Virginia and Virginia (see Court Cancels Permits for Mountain Valley Pipe on Fed Land). The court says USFS and BLM didn’t come to the right conclusion about sedimentation and erosion impacts of MVP. The judges (who don’t know a thing about these issues) say USFS and BLM’s contention that impacts can be adequately mitigated is in error. Because the project is stopped at that one tiny 3.5-mile location, on Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a stop work order for the entire project. At least for now. In the stop work order, FERC indicates they think the USFS and BLM will soon reissue the permits overturned by the Fourth Circuit, and when that happens, work on the rest of the project will resume. But FERC can’t predict when that will happen, so in the meantime, all work (except to stabilize certain areas to protect against erosion) must stop. What gripes us is that Sierra Club radicals were able to shut down an entire project by concentrating on a technicality at one, small point. What a disgusting, anti-American organization. MVP issued a statement this morning to say the the pipeline will get built, and will likely keep its schedule of going online in the first quarter of 2019…
