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According to a proposed plan, new cribbing will be transported by helicopter to Mountain Valley construction sites in the Jefferson National Forest with unburied pipeline sections that are currently supported by deteriorating platforms.

For four years now, large sections of steel pipe have been left along a cleared path through the Jefferson National Forest, caught in a state of limbo as legal battles have stalled construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The 42-inch diameter pipe sits on wooden platforms, or cribbing, that over time have deteriorated.

In January, a section of pipe slipped off the cribbing and slid about 40 feet down a snow-covered slope.

A similar incident happened in February.

Mountain Valley now has a plan to stabilize the pipe.

Late last week, the company asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve its proposal for a 3.5-mile stretch of the pipeline that passes through the national forest in Giles and Montgomery counties.

New cribbing will be transported by helicopter to the construction sites, where it will be installed by crews without the use of heavy equipment that would tear up the ground.

“We acknowledge the challenge of maintaining erosion control measures for an extended period and believe this will represent the most expedient opportunity to achieve stabilization,” Daniel Olsen, lead pipeline executive for the U.S. Forest Service, wrote in recommending the plan.

It will take up to three days to deliver the cribbing by air and less than two weeks for installation, Mountain Valley says.

While all of the pipe along a 125-foot wide right of way through the forest is currently considered stable, company spokeswoman Natalie Cox said the work will provide reinforcement until construction resumes.

The Jefferson National Forest is one of the largest contiguous areas along the pipeline’s 303-mile route through West Virginia and Virginia where the pipe has yet to be buried in trenches.

In 2018, just a few months after construction began on the $6.6 billion project, a federal appeals court threw out a permit for the pipeline’s route through the national forest, which also includes a small section of Monroe County, West Virginia.

A new permit issued by the Forest Service was again struck down by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January. Mountain Valley has now filed its third application. As it also seeks other approvals invalidated by the Fourth Circuit, the company has asked FERC to extend the deadline for completion of the pipeline until 2026.

Mountain Valley says the pipeline is mostly completed, and that it hopes to finish the job by late next year.

In rejecting government authorizations, the Fourth Circuit raised a variety of environmental concerns. Mountain Valley has been cited repeatedly for failing to control muddy runoff from construction sites across steep mountainsides.

In the national forest, the majority of the pipe, which is manufactured in 40-foot lengths, was staged along the right of way after trees were felled in 2018.

Lynda Majors, who lives along the project’s route and is a member of Preserve Montgomery County, questioned why it has taken eight months to come up with what is a simple stabilization plan.

“FERC is well aware of the pipes crushing the cribbing throughout the pipeline ROW [right of way] and the real potential for way more than one pipe slipping off cribbing and falling downhill,” Majors wrote in an email.

There is currently no similar action planned for the far larger part of the pipeline that passes through private property, she said.

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Laurence Hammack covers environmental issues, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and business and enterprise stories. He has been a reporter for The Roanoke Times for more than three decades.

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For the second time, a federal appeals court has revoked a permit issued by the U.S. Forest Service.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said this week that it will not consider a stream-crossing permit after other federal approvals for the pipeline were struck down by an appeals court.

According to a proposed plan, new cribbing will be transported by helicopter to Mountain Valley construction sites in the Jefferson National Forest with unburied pipeline sections that are currently supported by deteriorating platforms.

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