Dominion's Atlantic Coast Pipeline Gets Supreme Court Hearing

56 Pipelines

The Appalachian Trail, which runs from Maine to Georgia, was completed in 1937. It’s the world’s longest hiking-only footpath, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, based in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, which works to protect and maintain the trail.

Atlantic Coast says 56 pipelines already cross the trail, some of them on Forest Service land.

“The Appalachian Trail has never been understood to constitute an impediment to pipeline construction,” Atlantic Coast argued.

But the environmental groups say none of those were authorized under similar circumstances. Some are on state or private land, while others predate the congressional designation of the Appalachian Trail, the groups say.

“In the 51 years since Congress designated the Appalachian Trail, the Forest Service had never granted a new right-of-way to an oil or gas pipeline to cross the trail in a national forest,” the groups argued.

The cases are United States Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association, 18-1584, and Atlantic Coast Pipeline v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association, 18-1587.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net
Laurie Asséo, Ros Krasny