FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 29, 2025
CONTACT
Dan Radmacher, Media Specialist, (276) 289-1018, dan@appvoices.org
RICHMOND, Va. — On Dec. 23, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality approved the Virginia Water Protection Permit and Upland Certification for the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC’s methane gas pipeline “Southeast Supply Enhancement Project.”
The approval comes despite deep public opposition to the project and concerns raised in comments on the draft permit, as well as additional comments delivered on behalf of the Southern Environmental Law Center, Appalachian Mountain Advocates and Appalachian Voices during a Dec. 18 DEQ hearing. Those comments reiterated that “Transco has failed to adequately consider less impactful crossing methods” and that DEQ “must do more to analyze and evaluate Transco’s cumulative impacts and their effects on water quality and beneficial uses.”
The massive SSEP pipeline expansion is proposed between Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and Coosa County, Alabama. It includes 26.4 miles of new pipe in Pittsylvania County and 28.4 miles of new pipe in Rockingham, Guilford, Forsyth, and Davidson counties, North Carolina. Additionally, the SSEP would expand emissions-producing gas-fired compressor units in Iredell and Davidson counties, North Carolina, and compressor station modifications in Anderson County, South Carolina, Walton and Henry counties in Georgia and Coosa County, Alabama. The project recently received state-level permits from North Carolina agencies, but still requires a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Most of the SSEP’s new pipe would be laid near or next to existing Transco pipelines and parts of the project cover a route similar to the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate extension. The co-location of multiple high-pressure, large-diameter pipelines is of significant concern for local residents in the impacted counties and was not adequately addressed in the DEQ’s review of the project.
“The Transco SSEP’s proposed crossings of streams and wetlands pose substantial harm to aquatic habitat, fish and wildlife, and will cause sedimentation and in some cases permanently damage these public resources,” said Jessica Sims, Virginia Field Coordinator at Appalachian Voices. “The agency has granted permission for the SSEP’s developers to spoil Virginia waterways, at the cost of our communities, for a project that serves no local benefit.”
“The Virginia DEQ has proposed the same kinds of deficient requirements and enforcement approach that failed so badly on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, causing serious damage to our waters and our communities since 2018, said David Sligh, Wild Virginia’s Water Quality Program Director. “There is no reason to believe these weak and inadequate measures will work any better on SSEP than they did on MVP. DEQ has again failed in its most basic mission and given SSEP a license to cause destruction the Clean Water Act was created to prevent.”
“Granting of these permits shows a refusal to believe the science that shows the continued burning of fossil fuels is the primary reason for stronger, more frequent, rain, floods and other impacts associated with the increase in global warming,” said Buck Purgason of Good Stewards of Rockingham. “Science should not be denied for corporate gain or political hoaxes. These pipelines have been shown to be unnecessary for future development; they are for the continued practice of fracking the Earth for export of gas for generations to come and the devastation of the planet along the way.”
