Companies cancel the Atlantic Coast Pipeline that would have run through Eastern NC
Duke Energy and Dominion Energy announced Sunday they are canceling plans for the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline that was to run through eight North Carolina counties.
The natural gas pipeline faced intense opposition from environmentalists, but planners had just won a U.S. Supreme Court case that would have allowed the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail. Costs were originally estimated at $5.1 billion, but ballooned to about $8 billion.
In a news release, Duke Energy said it would advance its clean-energy goals with investments in renewable energy, battery storage, and other projects.
“While we’re disappointed that we’re not able to move forward with ACP, we will continue exploring ways to help our customers and communities, particularly in eastern North Carolina where the need is great,” Duke Energy President and CEO Lynn Good said in a statement.
The pipeline was to run from West Virginia through Virginia and North Carolina, including in Northampton, Halifax, Nash, Wilson, Johnston, Sampson, Cumberland and Robeson counties.
In a news release, The Southern Environmental Law Center called the decision a victory for public lands, landowners in the pipeline’s path, and “for all North Carolinians and Virginians who deserve a clean energy future” and won’t have to pay for an $8 billion pipeline.
“This is a victory for all the communities that were in the path of this risky and unnecessary project,” law center senior attorney Greg Buppert said in a statement. “The Atlantic Coast Pipeline was wrong from the start. After years of opposition, legal defeats and threats to the environment, SELC is relieved to see Duke and Dominion make the right decision to walk away from it.”
Permit fight
An investigation for the Republican-controlled legislature concluded last year that Cooper had “improperly used the authority and influence of his office” in the pipeline permitting, The News & Observer reported. As approval of a key water quality permit was announced in January 2018, the Democratic governor said the energy companies had agreed to a $57.8 million fund for environmental mitigation, economic development and renewable energy.
Duke Energy has said that the company did not see the mitigation fund as conditional to the permit approval.
Cooper’s office had called the investigation a “sham.”
Environmentalists and community groups had pressured Department of Environmental Quality to revoke the water quality permit.
Last summer, environmental groups petitioned DEQ to revoke the permit, saying that major impacts in Robeson County had not been disclosed in the application.
When Cooper presented a state clean-energy plan last year that aims to reduce greenhouse gases from electricity production, environmentalists criticized the efforts over the pipeline permit.
Last year, the Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board under DEQ passed a “statement of concern” over the pipeline.
Cooper said in a statement Sunday saying, “This decision and the changing energy landscape should lead to cleaner and more reliable energy generation in North Carolina. Our Clean Energy Plan provides an excellent framework and stakeholder process for renewable energy moving forward.”