The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), on behalf of Friends of Buckingham, challenged on February 8 the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board’s decision to approve Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline Buckingham County compressor station. Joining SELC in the lawsuit, filed with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, was the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF).

The Air Board voted unanimously January 8 to approve the permit.  The action was vigorously opposed by ABRA and its members, including Friends of Buckingham and Yogaville Satchidananda Ashram. The SELC/CBF petition contends that the Air Board and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality did not meet their obligations under state and federal laws to consider less-polluting alternatives and the best available pollution controls for minimizing pollution from the proposed compressor station.

“The backdrop to the board’s decision about the compressor station is the mounting evidence that customers in Virginia do not need the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to meet their energy needs,” said SELC Senior Attorney Greg Buppert. “When a project like this pipeline goes forward without a full and transparent evaluation of its public necessity, it unfairly puts communities like Union Hill in harm’s way.”

A briefing schedule for the case has not been established.  Arguments before the Fourth Circuit are not anticipated to occur until sometime this Fall.

Buckingham Air Permit Challenged in Court
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