Pipeline opponents worry that pipes may have been damaged

On July 27, the United States Supreme Court removed one of the obstacles holding off the completion of the long-delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline.

As work to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline ramps up this summer, one of the first tasks is to test the integrity of sections of pipe that have been exposed to the elements for years.

With construction slowed by legal battles, many unconnected segments of pipe have sat along the project’s right-of-way, where sunlight can break down a coating designed to protect the steel pipe from corrosion once it’s buried.

If the coating is not properly reapplied, Mountain Valley opponents say, the pipe could fail, releasing high-pressurized natural gas that would spark a calamitous explosion.

Since construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline resumed earlier this summer, the company has been inspecting sections of pipe that have been exposed to the elements and, where necessary, reapplying a coating designed to protect the pipe from corrosion once it’s buried. Pictured here are sections of pipe that have been stored above ground along the pipeline’s right-of-way near Elliston.

“MVP is a very high risk pipeline,” a group of 26 organizations wrote in a June 22 letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other agencies overseeing construction of the highly divisive project.

The organizations — which range from environmental heavyweights like the Sierra Club to small community groups — say that running such a massive pipeline across steep mountain slopes raises the risk of landslides that could rupture a weakened pipe.

In a June 29 response letter to FERC, Mountain Valley outlined what it is doing to inspect the pipes, reapply the fusion bonded epoxy coating when needed, and take other steps to guarantee the safety of what it calls a vital infrastructure project.

“Project opponents ignore the facts and continue to push this issue to spark fear and further their anti-fossil fuel agendas,” Matthew Eggerding, deputy general counsel for Mountain Valley, wrote in the letter.

Construction has been spasmodic since it began in early 2018, as a federal appeals court repeatedly rejected Mountain Valley’s government permits after environmental groups filed legal challenges.

Then, in May, Congress passed a law green-lighting the project, which it declared was in the national interest. The U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay on construction in late July, allowing heavy equipment and about 4,500 workers to return to the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia.

“It’s been a long and challenging journey for MVP,” said Thomas Karam, chairman and CEO of Equitrans Midstream Corp., the lead partner in a venture of five energy companies building the $6.6 billion pipeline.

“While we don’t expect the opposition to give up, we have the highest degree of confidence that we will complete this project,” Karam told financial analysts during an Aug. 2 conference call.

But inspecting and reinforcing the pipe is just one of many jobs that lie ahead for Mountain Valley, which says the project will be done by year’s end.

About 643 crossings of streams and wetlands — roughly half of them in Southwest Virginia, which the pipeline will bisect on its way from northern West Virginia to an existing pipeline in Pittsylvania County — must be made, either by digging through or burrowing beneath the water bodies.

Construction crews will also bore under Interstate 81 near the Montgomery-Roanoke county line and the Appalachian Trail in the Jefferson National Forest, the later a complicated job expected to take at least 10 weeks.

“It’s absurd to even assert that,” David Sligh said of Mountain Valley’s stated goal of finishing work this year. Sligh is conservation director of Wild Virginia, one of the groups fighting the pipeline.

“I flat-out don’t think it’s possible,” he said.

Along the pipeline’s 303-mile route, more than 270 miles of pipe have already been lowered into trenches and covered with dirt, Mountain Valley says.

All of the installed segments have met the company’s internal requirements for coating thickness, which are above the manufacturer’s recommendation, according to the company.

Work is underway to inspect the remaining pipe sections, which have been left in outdoor storage areas or along a 125-foot-wide swath of land cleared for the pipeline, Eggerding wrote in his letter to FERC.

In 2018, when Mountain Valley was using the legal process of eminent domain to take private land needed for the pipeline, it urged a judge to grant it immediate possession so work could begin. A company executive testified that it was important to bury the pipe as soon as possible to protect its coating from the sun’s harmful UV rays.

The pipes that have remained above the ground since then have been rotated “where practicable” to limit exposure, although that is not possible for many sections that have already been bent or welded together, Eggerding wrote.

Mountain Valley says it is conducting “rigorous inspections” to check the 42-inch diameter pipes for any damage and to ensure the coating still meets specifications. When necessary, the pipe is sandblasted or scrubbed before the coating is reapplied.

Pictured here are sections of pipe that have been stored above ground along the pipeline's right-of-way near Elliston.

Asked by The Roanoke Times how many times that has happened, company spokeswoman Natalie Cox did not provide a direct answer in an emailed response.

“Safety is our No. 1 priority,” she wrote in describing the inspection and repair process in general terms. Her email also did not answer a question about how thick the coating must be to meet company standards, saying only that it was part of a “comprehensive integrity program.”

Environmental groups say the pipes should be moved to an indoor setting before the coating is reapplied in order to protect nearby streams and wetlands.

“MVP defies logic to suggest that airborne particles from sanding pipes white hot, and airborne chemical components of covering, will not impact field, forest and water,” Roberta Bondurant wrote on behalf of Preserve Bent Mountain in a letter to FERC.

Mountain Valley considered moving the pipes off-site for treatment, but concluded it was not workable and would involve unnecessary environmental impacts, Eggerding wrote.

The company says it plans to use canopies at work sites, “where feasible and appropriate for the conditions,” to limit the spread of dust.

Making sure the pipe is adequately coated is just one part of the company’s safety plan, Cox said. Other aspects include cathodic protection — which applies a small electric current to the buried pipe to limit corrosion — using pipe that is as thick as a deck of cards to meet federal requirements, and around-the-clock monitoring once natural gas is flowing.

Coating inspectors hired by Mountain Valley and certified by the National Association of Corrosion Engineers are the first line of defense. Looking over their shoulders will be inspectors from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

PHMSA is responsible for checking the company’s procedures and documentation.

The administration’s inspectors have spent 229 days in the field since Mountain Valley construction began, a spokeswoman said, and additional oversight is planned.

Earlier this month, PHMSA announced $64 million in grants to support enhanced pipeline safety operations. Most of the administration’s work is contracted out to state agencies. In Virginia, the job falls to the State Corporation Commission.

A team of 11 inspectors is assigned to oversee pipe recoating and other activities at Mountain Valley sites, according to SCC spokesman Andy Farmer.

On Friday, PHMSA issued a proposed safety order that notified Mountain Valley of the need to remediate any coating deficiencies before the pipeline is placed in operation. The order “aims to ensure the pipe has effective coating, and that any potential corrosion or land movement-related issues are identified and addressed to protect communities adjacent to MVP, and the environment,” a notice on PHMSA’s website states.

Pipeline foes say the government is still giving too much deference to a company that has repeatedly run afoul of regulations meant to protect the environment.

“Ultimately, that MVP advances itself as “The Tester’ under present circumstances, is unacceptable in a project which has proven so environmentally harmful, economically questionable, and politically and financially driven,” Bondurant wrote in her letter to FERC.

State regulators in Virginia and West Virginia have cited the company with nearly 500 violations of regulations meant to control erosion and sedimentation.

Muddy runoff from construction sites has reached nearby streams and wetlands, where opponents say it threatens water quality and the habitats of endangered species.

As seen from a drone, a piece of heavy equipment drives on a temporary wooden road where crews had resumed construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline south of Boones Mill in July.

But since work resumed earlier this summer, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has found no violations, spokeswoman Irina Calos said. Mountain Valley has said earlier that most of the problems happened during the heavy rains of 2018 and 2019.

Meanwhile, construction crews are returning to work sites that have been inactive — except for maintenance to limit erosion — since the fall of 2021.

Mountain Valley has told the U.S. Forest Service that it plans to begin boring under the Appalachian Trail in mid-September. That project entails drilling a tunnel for the pipe about 80 feet below the trail as it traverses the ridgeline of Peters Mountain north of Pearisburg.

The trail will remain open during the estimated 10 weeks it will take for the job, Forest Service spokeswoman Gwen Mason said.

Also this fall, construction crews will begin digging a passage for the pipeline to pass under Interstate 81, just north of the Ironto exit. Work is scheduled to start Aug. 21 and last until Dec. 4. The actual boring will be done over an approximately 35-day period in late October and November, according to Jason Bond, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Cox declined to give details on either project, writing in her email that there are “a number of factors — including weather, crew availability, terrain, etc. — that contribute to making the construction schedule very dynamic.”

As workers wearing hard hats began to show up along the pipeline’s linear construction zone, they were soon met by protesters waving signs and shouting “Stop! You need to stop!”

At first, gatherings in Montgomery and Roanoke counties disbanded before police arrived. Then on Friday, two people used so-called sleeping dragons — lock-box devices into which they insert their hands — to chain themselves to excavators atop Poor Mountain.

A Mountain Valley Pipeline opponent is attached to a piece of heavy equipment during Friday's protest in Roanoke County.

After an eight-hour removal process, Roanoke County police charged the protesters, one from California and the other from Washington, D.C., with interfering with Mountain Valley’s property rights.

In all, more than 50 people have been charged in a variety of protests along the pipeline’s route through Virginia: sitting in tree stands built to block construction, chaining themselves to bulldozers and walking in large groups onto work sites.

“Our ‘leaders’ have clearly taken a side, so it’s up to us to stop this thing,” one unidentified supporter said in a news release from Appalachians Against Pipelines.

But in reality, the greatest threat to Mountain Valley has been men and women wearing black robes — at least until recently.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down permits that were then reissued, struck down again, reissued and challenged by environmental groups yet again.

Some have said the pipeline would be finished today were it not for the Fourth Circuit.

“A contrary view might be that the pipeline would be finished today had MVP and Respondents [federal agencies that granted the permits] followed all of the necessary laws and regulations to get it done,” one judge of the court wrote in a recent opinion.

Supporters of Mountain Valley, who include U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., turned to Congress for help. In a provision of a law that lifted the debt ceiling to avert a government default, agencies were ordered to issue all remaining permits while the Fourth Circuit was stripped of its jurisdiction to hear any challenges.

On Friday, the court dismissed the remaining cases, ruling that it did not have the authority to consider a larger question of whether Congress violated the separation of powers doctrine by encroaching on the works of the judicial branch.

Evan Zoldan, a professor at the University of Toledo’s law school and an expert on the separation of powers, has said the case could ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But by the time that happens, it could be too late to stop the pipeline.

Hoping to slow things down again, opponents are poring over a number of options. One would be to ask DEQ — which is believed to not be bound by the federal law — for a stop work order, Sligh of Wild Virginia said. In 2021, a new state law expanded the environmental agency’s power to halt construction if there is a showing of substantial harm.

“We’re not giving up on this,” Sligh said of the prospect of stopping Mountain Valley. “We think that’s a real possibility, and it should happen.”

Laurence Hammack (540) 981-3239

[email protected]

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A coating designed to protect sections of the Mountain Valley Pipeline from corrosion may have been broken down by sunlight during long delays…

A major leak occurred last year at Pennsylvania storage facility that is operated by the lead partner in a venture that is building Mountain Valley.

On July 27, the United States Supreme Court removed one of the obstacles holding off the completion of the long-delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Some worry that the pipeline's protective coating has weakened as the project keeps getting delayed.