Mountain Valley Pipeline gets permit for water crossings

The pipeline will go to one that serves eastern states. 

"A final permit issued Friday may be enough to get the Mountain Valley Pipeline across the remaining rivers, streams and wetlands that have long blocked the project’s path to completion," reports Laurence Hammack of The Roanoke Times.

The permit came from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "for construction through hundreds of water bodies in Southwest Virginia and West Virginia, as it was required to do by a recently passed federal law that fast tracks the controversial project," Hammack writes, noting the law's main backer, conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, where the pipeline will gather its gas.

The permit covers all the "water resources" the pipeline needs to cross, which are so numerous that an exact count wasn't available Friday. "Mountain Valley has previously said that it has completed more than half of the nearly 1,000 water-body crossings along the pipeline’s 303-mile route," Hammack notes. "But one thing seemed clear Friday: Mountain Valley now has approval to complete a natural gas project that has been delayed for more than four years by permitting complications and legal challenges."