Environmental Groups File Challenge to Controversial SSEP Pipeline

RICHMOND, Va. - Today, several environmental groups filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Clean Water Act permit for the controversial Southeast Supply Enhancement Project, or SSEP pipeline.

The Sierra Club, 7 Directions of Service, Haw River Assembly, Wild Virginia, and Appalachian Voices, represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates and the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed the case in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals , asking the court to invalidate the permit. The pipeline would use the destructive "dry-ditch, open-cut" crossing method, which can permanently damage aquatic ecosystems, for 165 of the pipeline's 173 stream and wetland crossings.

Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit scheduled an April 28 hearing on motions to stay water permits for the co-located Mountain Valley Pipeline extension.

In response, the Sierra Club, Wild Virginia, 7 Directions of Service, Haw River Assembly, and Appalachian Voices released the following statements:

"SSEP would trench across streams and wetlands, damaging sensitive aquatic ecosystems," said Caroline Hansley, Campaign Organizing Strategist for the Sierra Club. "Regulators have consistently ignored the overwhelming burden the SSEP project would place on the environment and the communities it would run through. Communities all along the proposed route have passionately spoken out against this unneeded project. We are determined to protect these communities and the more than 150 streams and wetlands threatened by SSEP."

"The Corps of Engineers has an important role in carrying out the historic objective of the Clean Water Act," said David Sligh, Water Quality Program Director at Wild Virginia . "By issuing the permit for SSEP, the Corps has failed in its vital mission, threatening great harms to the waters and the communities that would be affected by this destructive project. The people of Virginia and North Carolina will not stand by silently and accept this failure by those public officials who are supposed to protect the public, not bow to the wishes of huge corporations out for profit at our expense."

"Rivers have the right to flow and thrive. Our communities and all species have the right to a healthy environment. We continue to raise our voices against SSEP, and the dangerous policies that put corporate profit over community wellbeing," said Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck, Executive Director of 7 Directions of Service . "Our human and more-than-human neighbors deserve far better than increased vulnerability to the impacts of the climate crisis compounded with existing environmental burdens, systemic racism, and inequitable access to social services."

"The risk of sediment pollution and additional impact on local ecosystems from the dry ditch methods planned for SSEP construction should not be taken on by our community", said Aidan Loretz, Community Organizer with Haw River Assembly and Pipelines Campaign Manager with 7 Directions of Service . "Our state is experiencing worsening natural disasters, like Tropical Storm Chantal and Hurricane Helene. During these storms, sediment pollution from construction becomes an even more pressing issue for our already overburdened waterways, like Reedy Fork Creek, Beaver Creek, and Jordan and Randleman Lakes."

"By permitting the pipeline to be constructed in this manner, the Army Corps is allowing the waterways along the entire route to be degraded," said Matt Allenbaugh, Virginia Campaign Coordinator with Appalachian Voices . "Construction will negatively impact the communities along the route in both states, whose opposition to this unnecessary pipeline has largely been ignored."