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A criminal investigation is ongoing on the Mountain Valley Pipeline regarding possible violations of the Clean Water Act and other federal laws, confirmed one of the companies building the project.
EQM Midstream Partners, the lead company of the joint venture, published this information in an annual report filed Thursday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Since construction began on the buried pipeline in southwestern Virginia last year, work crews have faced numerous burdensome regulations to prevent muddy runoff from contaminating oil prices. Water and rivers nearby.
Although Mountain Valley has been named in pending actions brought by the Virginia Environmental Quality Department and in a lawsuit brought by Attorney General Mark Herring, this week's filing is the first confirmation of a criminal investigation.
On January 7, EQM received a letter from the US Attorney's Office in Roanoke stating that the agency and the Environmental Protection Agency were investigating civil and criminal violations related to the construction of a pipeline, according to the SEC file.
About a month later, a grand jury summons was issued "requesting certain MVP related documents from August 1, 2018 to the present day," EQM reported in the file.
"The MVP joint venture complies with the letter and the subpoena but can not predict whether an action will eventually be brought by the US Attorney's Office or what will be the outcome," he said.
A spokesman for the EPA's headquarters in Washington, DC, said the agency was not commenting on potential or ongoing investigations. Brian McGinn, a spokesman for the US prosecutor's office, also declined to comment, citing a similar policy of not confirming or denying the existence of an ongoing investigation.
Last month, two lawyers told The Roanoke Times that they had asked the EPA in November to investigate what they called "a substantial body of evidence" gathered by Preserve Bent Mountain, an organization they represent.
Photographs and other documents from construction sites indicate that work in the creeks and wetlands continued well after October 5, 2018, when a license was suspended by the Corps of Engineers of the Army. American, said Charlie Williams and Tom Bondurant at the time.
It was unclear on Friday if their request had motivated the investigation mentioned by EQM in its file with the SEC. Bondurant refused to comment.
Chainsaw teams began cutting down trees in February 2018, clearing a 125-foot strip for the 303-mile pipeline through West Virginia and Southwest Virginia. Last spring, heavy equipment was installed to level the land along steep slopes and dig trenches for the 42-inch-diameter steel pipe.
The lawsuit filed by Herring on behalf of DEQ and the National Water Control Board alleges more than 300 violations of erosion and sediment control measures, beginning in May 2018.
The criminal investigation seems to relate to events that began later during what is expected to be a two-year construction period for the $ 4.6 billion project.
In their January letter to Mountain Valley, federal prosecutors directed the five joint venture companies – as well as their contractors, suppliers and other entities involved in the construction – to keep any relevant documents from September 1.
The summons from the grand jury, which arrived a month later, concerned documents dating from 1 August.
Green groups and other opponents of the pipeline sector said last summer that the worst environmental damage was yet to come, when Mountain Valley would begin to dynamite the bedrock and dig trenches at the bottom of the streams to bury them.
A lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club and other people has challenged a license issued by the Army Corps of Engineers that authorized the crossing of waterways in West Virginia.
On October 2, the US Circuit Court of Appeal canceled the license. On the basis of this decision, a second Army Corps license covering southwestern Virginia was suspended three days later.
If Mountain Valley continued to work in streams and wetlands after losing its Corps authorization, it could be a criminal offense, said Bondurant, a former federal prosecutor earlier.
The law requires publicly traded companies to report any legal action that may affect their business to the SEC, which is responsible for protecting investors and maintaining public confidence in US markets.
In previous filings, MQS has documented a number of lawsuits, most of which have been filed by environmental groups against regulatory bodies that have licensed or certified Mountain Valley.
Thursday's filing marked the first time a criminal investigation was mentioned.
On the same day, the MQM leaders held a conference call to discuss the results of the 2018 fiscal year with financial analysts. They talked about the loss of several permits because of court challenges, but have not opened criminal investigation.
Despite all the legal and regulatory difficulties to date, company officials said the project would not be completed as planned until the end of the year, when it will start shipping natural gas to customers in the central and southeastern regions of the country. .
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