Circuit Court Judge Upholds Pipelines' Right to Survey

pipelineA circuit court judge in Montgomery County dealt a setback to foes of the Mountain Valley Pipeline yesterday by finding constitutional a controversial state law allowing natural gas companies to survey private property without an owner’s permission. Turk said that the Virginia law allows a natural gas company to enter private property for surveying even if its owner has denied permission, reports the Roanoke Times.

Temporary access to a landowner’s property for purposes of conducting a survey does not represent an unconstitutional “taking” of property without compensation, Turk ruled. “There’s no transfer of property,”  he said. The law in question “takes away the criminal aspect of trespass, something the Virginia legislature has the right to do.”

Turk’s ruling in the Giles County case could have implications for lawsuits filed by landowners in the path of both the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), who say that the activity of survey teams on private property can impose costs for which they are not compensated.

Attorneys representing landowners said that they intend to file lawsuits in other counties where clients could be impacted by the proposed pipelines. They will challenge state law on the grounds that MVP does not meet the criteria of a public service corporation. Pipeline foes have advanced the argument that there is no “public necessity” for either the MVP or the ACP, despite the fact that both pipeline companies have signed contracts for most of the pipelines’ capacity. Foes argue that existing pipelines could handle much, if not all, of the volume of natural gas required by the shift from coal- to gas-fired utilities and growth in the economy, and that there is no justification for acquiring rights of way through their land through eminent domain.

— JAB