Virginia DEQ approves water permit for controversial MVP Southgate pipeline 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 14, 2025

CONTACT
Dan Radmacher, Media Specialist, (276) 289-1018, dan@appvoices.org

RICHMOND, Va. — On Jan. 13, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality approved the Virginia Water Protection Permit for Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC’s methane gas pipeline “Southgate.”

Southgate would extend the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, into Rockingham, North Carolina, and has faced significant opposition since it was originally proposed in 2018. The project was previously unable to obtain state-level water and air permits. The project still requires a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and approval from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The route, size and impact of this version of the project are far different than the project the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued the original 2020 Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for. Yet regulators have ignored those changes in order to expedite approval of the controversial project. MVP has not provided evidence that Southgate is needed to meet demand for gas, as reflected in the recent London Economics International report commissioned by the Southern Environmental Law Center.

The pipeline developer, MVP, has a history of water quality violations with the construction of the original Mountain Valley Pipeline mainline project, accruing over $2.5 million in fines and being forced to settle a court enforcement action brought by Virginia’s attorney general and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

Adding to the significant concern about Southgate, the Williams Companies’ expansion of their Transco pipelines, called the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project, is undergoing a simultaneous permitting process, with FERC expected to decide on a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity in early February. The pipeline companies have bickered publicly about their access to the area and the need for both pipelines. FERC’s Environmental Analysis for the Southgate project concluded that the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project could eliminate any need for Southgate. The co-location of two high-pressure, large-diameter pipelines is of significant concern for local residents.

“The DEQ’s decision to approve Southgate’s water permit ignores the egregious history of the MVP developers’ hundreds of violations of water quality during construction of the original pipeline,“ said Jessica Sims, Virginia Field Coordinator at Appalachian Voices. “The past informs the present, and the Virginia DEQ permit approval attempts to erase a dangerous possibility that MVP developers will again bring harm to Virginia’s waterways.”

“Virginia officials have failed to protect Virginians from the extensive damage and pain the mainline MVP has caused and DEQ has ignored and misrepresented those impacts,” said David Sligh, Wild Virginia’s Water Quality Program Director. “DEQ seems willing to allow MVP Southgate to do the same, betraying the interests of Virginians.”

“DEQ leadership has reduced its values statement down to one C: ‘Commerce,’” said Russell Chisholm, Managing Director of Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights. “In an era of disintegration of bedrock federal protections for our ecosystem, we need state agencies to step into the gap to actually ‘promote the health and well-being of the commonwealth’s citizens, residents, and visitors’ and protect all living things before every last parcel is ceded to the polluters.”

“With this decision, DEQ has failed to fulfill its mission to protect Virginia’s environment,” said Victoria Higgins, Virginia Director at Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “Communities downstream will pay the price for a project that’s unnecessary, risky and out of step with the clean energy future Virginians deserve. It is time for regulators to stop rubber-stamping fossil fuel projects at the expense of frontline communities and our environment.”

“Again, Virginia DEQ has ignored the fact-based science and greenlighted this unnecessary, unwanted pipeline project that offers no benefits to Virginians,” said Buck Purgason of Good Stewards of Rockingham. “The devastation that this project will cause will be felt along the entire route and everyone downstream will suffer from this decision. No so-called mitigation can contend with Mother Nature’s actions despite DEQ’s attempt to limit construction dates.”

“The Virginia DEQ has failed to protect Virginians and their waterways from the dangerous and polluting MVP Southgate project,” said Caroline Hansley, Campaign Organizing Strategist at Sierra Club. “By approving this water permit, the DEQ is placing the health and well-being of Virginia’s rivers and streams at risk. We cannot allow our community’s health and safety to be traded for pipeline profits. This expensive and unnecessary project would only add to the economic burden that everyday Americans are suffering under.”

“As it has done so many times before, Virginia DEQ has once again ignored its responsibility to protect waters and communities in favor of facilitating commerce for a notorious polluter,” said Joshua Vana, Director of ARTivism Virginia. “In a time when state governments ought to be resisting at every turn the wholesale destruction of environmental protections, DEQ has instead plunged further into its disgraceful role as a rubber stamp agency that won’t even seriously consider denying a pipeline permit on obvious and just grounds.”