North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) did not adequately explain its decision to deny a water quality certificate for Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC’s (MVP) Southgate expansion project, a federal appeals court has ruled.

MVP

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a ruling handed down late last week granted a petition filed by MVP seeking to vacate the DEQ’s decision last August to deny state certification for the project. 

MVP’s Southgate project would consist of 75 miles of 16-inch and 24-inch diameter line to extend the original 303-mile, 2 million Dth/d mainline project’s reach into North Carolina. At the time, the DEQ predicated its decision to deny the certification, required under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, on uncertainty...