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Federal Court Tosses Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s Key Endangered Species Permits
By: Brittany Patterson, WV Public Broadcasting July 26, 2019 A federal court has thrown out two key permits for the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline. U.S. 4th Circuit Court Chief Judge Robert Gregory said in an opinion issued Friday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t adhere to its mandate to protect endangered species when it fast-tracked re-issuing two permits to the natural gas project proposed to go through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. “In fast-tracking its decisions, the agency appears to have lost sight of its mandate under the ESA: ‘to protect and conserve endangered and threatened…
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Five years after Dan River coal ash spill, Duke Energy settlement would add land to Mayo State Park
By: Lisa Sorg, NC Policy Watch July 22, 2019 The Mayo River in Mayo State Park, Rockingham County (Photo: NC State Parks) This story has been updated with news regarding the purchase and transferal of the 64 acres by Duke Energy. A settlement between Duke Energy and state and federal officials over the 2014 Dan River spill would impose no significant financial penalties, but it would preserve key tracts of land along the Mayo River, according to court documents. Announced Friday, the…
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DEQ denies water quality permit for MVP Southgate natural gas pipeline
By: Lisa Sorg, NC Policy Watch June 13, 2019 The Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgateproject encountered another setback this week, when the NC Department of Environmental Quality rejected a key water quality permit, a federal requirement for the plan to continue. Although DEQ had repeatedly asked for information for more than six months, MVP Southgate hadn’t provided a full accounting of stream crossings and other impacts on waterways to the department. Without the additional information, DEQ couldn’t evaluate the application before a federal deadline, according to a letter from Linda Culpepper, director of the Division of Water Resources. MVP Southgate has known of the federal timetable since…
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Solicitor Gen., Atlantic Coast Pipeline seek more time to appeal case to Supreme Court
The Charleston Gazette-Mail, May 27, 2019 By Kate Mishkin The federal government and Atlantic Coast Pipeline will have more time to appeal a lower court’s ruling that halted the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Noel Francisco, the solicitor general, wrote to the U.S. Supreme Court asking to move the deadline to June 25 — one month after the initial deadline. The ACP subsequently filed a request for an extension to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, or a request that the Supreme Court hear the case. Chief Justice John Roberts granted the request. “The additional time sought in this application…
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