Overview
- The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied environmental groups’ request to pause work on the 30-mile Southgate extension into North Carolina.
- The court issued two short orders declining to freeze construction while lawsuits over a pair of water-quality approvals move forward.
- Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club are contesting state certifications under Clean Water Act Section 401, which a project needs before the Army Corps can grant a Section 404 permit to dig through streams and wetlands.
- The decisions clear the way for preliminary construction activity to begin even though the underlying permit appeals remain pending.
- At a hearing a day earlier, judges questioned the developer’s past environmental violations on the mainline, and Judge James Wynn stressed that the North Carolina extension must be assessed under different state standards and processes.