Mountain Valley Pipeline developers defend not remediating pipe offsite in response to questioning of pipe integrity

Environment and Energy Reporter

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Mountain Valley Pipeline developers defended their project's pipe integrity in a filing with federal regulators amid withering scrutiny from opponents who say the pipe's coating presents safety and health liabilities. Pictured is pipe lying near where the pipeline crosses through Lewis County.

Mountain Valley Pipeline developers have told federal regulators they don’t intend to remediate the pipeline offsite, resisting calls from pipeline safety advocates and project opponents to do so.

Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, the joint venture behind the 303.5-mile pipeline, contended it wouldn’t be practicable to remediate the pipeline offsite in a filing last week with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the lead agency overseeing the project.

Pipeline safety proponents asked the FERC and other federal regulators to require any deteriorated coating to be remediated indoors in a plant to ensure “the highest-quality reapplication” and protect waterways.

It’s been five years since a Mountain Valley Pipeline executive said in federal court the company’s pipeline needed to be installed within a year to guard against the sun breaking down the pipe’s coating designed to prevent corrosion.

Robert Cooper, testifying as senior vice president of Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, was arguing against project delays.

The National Association of Pipe Coating Applicators has recommended against aboveground storage of coated pipe for longer than six months without additional ultraviolet protection.

Some of the pipe slated for use in constructing the Mountain Valley Pipeline has been lying uninstalled along the route for years since Cooper’s testimony. The long wait to put the pipe in the ground has prompted concerns that sunlight has compromised the 42-inch-diameter pipe’s coating.

Mountain Valley said in its June 29 FERC filing that many of the pipe segments in the field have been bent and welded. To move pipe segments offsite and prepare them for installation, each segment would have to be disconnected, loaded onto a truck, transported with increased traffic on public roads and use of temporary access roads and rewelded onsite, Mountain Valley said. Disconnecting the pipe would involve removing the coating in the field, Mountain Valley added.

Mountain Valley called those impacts “negative, duplicative, and unnecessary” and said they would delay finishing the project.

Pipeline Safety Trust, a Bellingham, Washington-based pipeline safety nonprofit, disagrees that coating reapplication offsite in a factory-controlled setting isn’t practical.

“It is a superior method to ensure that the pipe’s first line of defense against corrosion is re-applied correctly and safely,” Pipeline Safety Trust Executive Director Bill Caram said in an email. “How many segments of pipe do they expect to find with damaged coating that they are worried about the practicality of using the safest method?”

A Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration spokesperson previously declined to say whether Mountain Valley Pipeline recoating would be applied last month but noted coating can be repaired and replaced onsite or in a factory setting. Factors affecting the decision include the extent of coating damage, weather conditions and space requirements for coating remediation at the site, the spokesperson said.

Mountain Valley acknowledged “lingering public questions regarding the coating of the pipe and overall pipe integrity” in its FERC filing.

Mountain Valley said it will “employ standard processes” to evaluate pipe coating and remediate as needed, with all field remediation occurring outside stream and wetland buffer areas.

More than three-quarters of the Mountain Valley Pipeline route in West Virginia is considered to have a high incidence of and high susceptibility to landslides, according to the project’s final environmental impact statement issued by FERC staff.

Mountain Valley noted in its filing it has rotated or covered unburied pipe segments to limit sun exposure, a measure that project opponents have called insufficient.

Caram has noted prolonged ultraviolet exposure can cause a loss of pipe flexibility that safety proponents fear Mountain Valley electrical current applications to detect coating defects won’t account for.

“MVP’s unbelievably careless intent is to install deteriorating, unsafe pipes in our highly slip prone soils,” Mountain Valley Pipeline-impacted Monroe County landowner Maury Johnson contended in a FERC filing Wednesday.

In another Wednesday filing submitted to the FERC, Mountain Valley said it is “reasonable to expect” the project likely will adversely impact the tricolored bat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal in September to list the tricolored bat as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Mountain Valley based its determination on uncertainty in where and when up to nearly 250 acres of future tree removal are slated to occur along with possible impacts from future vegetation maintenance and tree-trimming.

The FERC asked for a formal conference with Fish and Wildlife on the tricolored bat last week. The formal conference process is designed to help federal agencies resolve potential conflicts between an action and species conservation and develop recommendations to minimize or avoid adverse effects to proposed species, Fish and Wildlife spokesperson David Eisenhauer said.

Fish and Wildlife anticipates providing a conference opinion prior to the date of the final rule on the tricolored bat, Eisenhauer said, adding that if the current proposed rule is finalized, the effective date is expected to be in October.

Federal regulations give the Fish and Wildlife up to 90 days to conclude formal consultation and another 45 days to prepare a biological opinion unless an extension is mutually agreed on.

If a jeopardy or adverse modification determination is made, the biological opinion must identify any reasonable alternatives that could allow the project to move forward. Such determinations are rare.

Eisenhauer deferred comment on the consultation process’s potential impact on the project timeline to Mountain Valley. Mountain Valley spokesperson Natalie Cox deferred comment to the FERC when asked Wednesday whether a formal conference on the tricolored bat could delay any project work. The FERC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline has been on a fast track to completion since last month, when Congress passed a debt ceiling suspension law that included a provision designed to force its completion. The Fiscal Responsibility Act ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to issue all permits needed to finish construction within three weeks and prohibiting legal challenges of any federal or state agency authorization for construction and initial operation of the pipeline.

Environmental groups have filed legal challenges to the law, arguing it is unconstitutional.

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Mike Tony covers energy and the environment. He can be reached at 304-348-1236 or [email protected]. Follow @Mike__Tony on Twitter.

Environment and Energy Reporter