The State Water Control Board plans to hold two meetings in December to consider the draft Section 401 water quality certification conditions for the proposed Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines. The conditions are proposed as additional safeguards to protect water quality during and after construction. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released the draft certification for public comment in July and the agency is now reviewing the comments received from the public. DEQ will make its final recommendation on the conditions for the board’s consideration at these two meetings.

At each meeting, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality will present a summary of the public comments it received and will make its recommendations to the board on the proposed conditions. At each meeting, the board may approve, deny or amend the recommendations.

The meeting dates are:

Mountain Valley Pipeline:  December 6 & 7, 2017

Atlantic Coast Pipeline:   December 11 & 12, 2017

   Each meeting will start at 9:30 a.m. and is scheduled to last up to two days.

·         On the first day of each meeting, those persons who made oral or written comments may sign up to respond to the summary of public comments presented to the board by DEQ.

·         The meeting is open to the public.

·         Under the board’s policy, only those people who provided comments during the July 3, 2017 – August 22, 2017 official public comment period may speak to the board. 

·         The response document will be available on the DEQ website in advance of the December meetings.

·         The official agenda containing more details will be posted on the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall, as well as on DEQ’s webpage, Water Protection for Pipelines.