The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources (DWR) has issued a Clean Water Act Section 401 water quality certification for the Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC Southgate Project. The project involves constructing a 5.2-mile natural gas transmission pipeline in Rockingham County.
According to DWR, the project would meet state water quality standards with conditions set by the certification. These standards are intended to protect existing uses of waterways, such as wildlife and aquatic habitats, recreation, agriculture, and water supply.
DWR conducted a comprehensive review of the application and considered more than 2,400 public comments received during the comment period and at an August 12 public hearing. A summary of these comments and DWR’s responses is available in the hearing officer’s report online.
MVP Southgate’s plan includes temporarily affecting 720 linear feet of streams and three acres of wetlands during construction. The project also involves permanently converting three acres of forested wetlands to shrub-dominated wetlands and causing permanent impacts to 52 linear feet of intermittent streams where culverts will be installed.
In its review, DWR assessed whether MVP Southgate avoided or minimized impacts on surface waters and wetlands, whether it would violate water quality standards, and if mitigation efforts were proposed to offset unavoidable impacts through restoration or preservation elsewhere.
The certification requires MVP Southgate to provide an environmental inspector for all instream activities, hold a pre-construction meeting on compliance matters, narrow construction corridors across sensitive areas, monitor impacted areas according to restoration plans, restore disturbed sites with native plants using best management practices, and identify private wells within construction limits for pre- and post-construction testing upon request.
To protect sensitive aquatic species in certain areas along the route, MVP must use trenchless techniques for crossing waterways where those species are present.
While total permanent stream losses fall below legal thresholds requiring broader mitigation measures elsewhere, MVP Southgate will still offset impacts to 52 linear feet of streams and three acres of converted wetlands.
Details about DWR’s responses to public comments can be found in the hearing officer’s report online. The full project file and certification documents are also available online.
