Bloomberg by Ellen M. Gilmer 2/10/2020
The Supreme Court hears oral arguments Feb. 24 in the high-stakes battle over the $7.8 billion Atlantic Coast pipeline. The justices must decide whether federal officials overstepped when they approved the project’s path across the Appalachian Trail.
The pipeline, backed by Dominion and Duke Energy Corp., would stretch some 600 miles from West Virginia’s shale gas fields to electric utilities in Virginia and North Carolina, helping to feed power demand on the Eastern Seaboard—though critics question how strong that demand really is.
The Blue Ridge mountains and the adjacent trail stand between the pipeline’s start and end points. The planned route would cross the range here, about 40 miles southwest of Charlottesville, Va. Conservation groups are concerned about impacts to the environment and the Appalachian Trail experience.
The resulting Supreme Court dispute is one of many clashes between the Trump administration’s quest for energy dominance and environmentalists’ efforts to protect the nation’s wild lands. More broadly, it spotlights a persistent challenge that transcends political winds: how to build America’s infrastructure without ripping up America.
More:
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/natural-gas-pipeline-iconic-trail-at-odds-in-supreme-court-case
