FERC Issues Final EIS For Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline Project

Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation Friday announced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued its final Environmental Impact Statement for Williams Partners' Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline Project, a 199.4 mile pipeline of which 196.9 miles are in Pennsylvania.

The issuance of the final EIS is a key step toward the FERC's final decision on the project, which is expected in early 2017.

The FERC notice releasing the final EIS says in part, “The FERC staff concludes that approval of the project would result in some adverse environmental impacts; however, most of these impacts would be reduced to less-than-significant levels with the implementation of Transco’s proposed mitigation and the additional measures recommended in the final EIS.”

Following the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, Williams Partners anticipates beginning construction in mid-2017, allowing for a full in-service of the project in mid-2018.

"Today's final EIS issuance represents a major milestone toward the final approval of the Atlantic Sunrise project," commented Dan O. Dinges, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. "We are also excited to increase our committed sales on the Atlantic Sunrise project utilizing capacity subscribed to by Cabot or by third parties to approximately 1 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day through the addition of this new sales agreement that is linked to the Gulf Coast market."

In reaction to the release of the final EIS, Maya van Rossum, Delaware Riverkeeper, said, “As anticipated, once again FERC has used its rubber stamp to issue an incomplete, and inadequate Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that would jeopardize Pennsylvania communities for the benefit of the companies that they are funded by and supposedly regulating.  The conclusion that the project would not cause significant harm is not borne out by the facts.”

“Pennsylvanians are no fools to the spotty and vague so called mitigation measures that FERC says will limit harm from the building of the pipeline,” said Faith Zerbe, Director of Monitoring, Delaware Riverkeeper Network.  “Time and time again we have monitored construction of these pipelines finding irreparable and lasting harms.  Time and time again upon field-truthing these proposed routes, important sensitive resources are often missed.  With agencies doing little ground-truthing themselves and strapped budgets, it is left up to citizen monitors to call out these gaps and inadequacies.”
For more information on the project, visit the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline Project website.
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