Natural Gas News – September 13, 2018

Natural Gas News – September 13, 2018

Proposed Natural Gas Pipeline Would Cross Missouri River

Grand Forks Herald reported: Representatives from Kinder Morgan are meeting with local residents this week to get input on the 10-mile pipeline while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reviews a permit application. The project, which would go beneath the Missouri River for about 2.5 miles in Williams and McKenzie counties, aims to capture natural gas that would otherwise be flared due to insufficient pipeline capacity. The water crossing would be constructed using horizontal directional drilling, with the pipe installed at least 140 feet below the bottom of the reservoir, said Allen Fore, vice president of public affairs for Kinder Morgan. “It’s the least impactful way to cross any kind of environmentally sensitive area, particularly water bodies, because you never impact the water body itself. You’re drilling underneath it,” Fore said.

Federal Court Pulls Natural Gas Pipeline Permits

FX Empire reported: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ordered a halt to construction on a 600-mile pipeline designed to carry natural gas across West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The order was made in response to a decision by a three-judge panel of the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia vacating permits issued by the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Environmental activist groups sued to halt ACP, challenging various required environmental permits for the pipeline’s route across federal parklands and for any potential incidental taking of endangered species. The three-judge panel ruled decisions by the NPS and FWS to grant construction permits were “arbitrary and capricious,” saying FWS failed to show how it would protect five threatened and endangered species, such as the rusty-patched bumblebee and clubshell mussel, that could be affected by construction.