Editorial: Time to move forward on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Far be it from us to suggest the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s recent decision regarding the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is meant to delay a project that finally had begun to move forward. But whatever the intent, that could be the effect.

The DEQ has chosen to subject the pipeline to a stream-by-stream, puddle-by-puddle analysis of the project’s effect on water quality, rather than follow federal rules that allow blanket permitting. Dominion dutifully has replied that it will gladly work with the agency. But the pipeline already received a green light in a draft environmental-impact review by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission earlier this year. That approval raises questions about the need for another review by the state.

Virginia’s review will include hundreds of water bodies large and small, and it will take time. Or rather, more time. The modern regulatory state has turned even simple projects into wars of attrition. It took only one year and 45 days to build the Empire State Building. The ACP was announced on Sept. 2, 2014. More than two years and seven months later, Dominion has not yet even broken ground, thanks to the need for literally dozens of state and federal permits, some of which require paperwork in the neighborhood of 30,000 pages.

Last month Diane Leopold, president of Dominion Energy, testified that the National Park Service took 14 months to review a 22-page application for a surveying permit. Once the Park Service finally acted, the surveying took less than a day. That’s because the area surveyed was only one-tenth of a mile.

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Opponents of the pipeline would be happy if it never received any permits, and would love to use the permit process to prevent its construction. But that is not how the law works in America. If Dominion can meet the legal and other criteria, then agencies are obliged to grant the required permits. They can’t stop the project just because some people find it objectionable.

And Dominion has gone to extraordinary lengths to assuage concerns and meet objections. The company initially considered more than 6,000 miles of potential routes for the pipeline It settled on a 550-mile route, which it then changed more than 300 times in response to challenges raised by environmental, historical, cultural, and property stakeholders. (Those changes explain why the route is now 600 miles long.)

Among other things, Dominion added 30 miles to the route — and $300 million to the cost — to skirt wildlife habitat in the Monongahela and George Washington National Forests to meet federal Forest Service concerns. It agreed to a request from FERC to change 26 miles of the route to avoid forests and wetlands. It has worked with private landowners to protect a wildlife preserve, a Dinwiddie gem mine, and much else.

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Opponents of the pipeline have made a great deal of noise, and have received a lot of sympathetic press. But it’s worth noting that they represent a minority view. Gov. Terry McAuliffe supports the pipeline, and so does his would-be successor, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, at least conditionally. Last week a bipartisan group of 16 legislative leaders from Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina wrote a letter endorsing the pipeline, contending that it would “offer hope and opportunity to thousands of hardworking men and women in our states” while posing “no threat to our states’ priceless natural resources.”

Speaking of letters: Labor union members recently hand-delivered 1,600 letters to Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine in support of the project. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild Virginia’s middle class,” said Dennis Martire, vice president for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Laborer’s International Union of America, “and we need to seize it.” Martire describes the ACP as “the biggest job-creating project we’ve seen in Virginia in many years.” (He might want to have a word with Northam’s primary opponent, Tom Perriello, who says “fracked gas pipelines . . . don’t create real jobs.”)

While a handful of localities have fought the pipeline, more than two dozen in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina have officially endorsed it. What’s more, polling shows that Virginians in general support the ACP by a nearly 2-1 margin. Critics, whose opposition is intense, are more likely to show up at meetings and demonstrations, which can produce a misleading impression of public sentiment. Overall sentiment leans lopsidedly in favor of the pipeline, not against it.

Dominion has labored tirelessly to meet stringent federal criteria, answer local objections, and work with property owners and other parties that might be affected by a project that, like an interstate highway, serves an important public purpose. Indeed: Roughly 2,200 miles of gas transmission lines already crisscross the state, which is more than twice as much mileage as Virginia’s interstate highways. Unlike the highways, most of the transmission pipelines are underground — just like the ACP will be.

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The ACP is one of the most thoroughly scrutinized projects in Virginia memory. No reasonable rationale to deny it approval has surfaced, and federal failure to give it the go-ahead would deal a serious blow to any hope for future energy projects in the commonwealth. We urge FERC, the DEQ, and the other relevant agencies to act swiftly so the ACP — and Virginia — can finally move forward.