The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny a key construction permit for water crossings to the $6.2-billion Mountain Valley Pipeline unless modifications and special conditions are incorporated into the project.
In a May 27 letter only released publicly this month, Jeffrey Lapp, EPA's wetlands branch chief in Philadelphia, said the agency had identified a number of “substantial concerns” with the 303-mile natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia, now nearly 92% complete, including whether “all feasible avoidance and minimization measures have been undertaken.”