Misjudgment Leads to Three Judges

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  COURTESY EL PASO CORP.

  A pipe is unloaded for the Ruby natural gas pipeline in this undated photo. A three-judge federal appeals panel ruled Monday that federal regulators erred in allowing the pipeline to be built across hundreds of rivers and streams in Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming in violation of environmental laws.

ssEL PASO CORP.

The article that I read was called "Ruby natural gas pipeline may endanger protected fish species". It said that agencies in charge of public lands and endangered species allowed a 678 mile pipeline to be built. This pipeline crosses hundreds of rivers and streams throughout 4 states (Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Oregon). All of this was in violation of environmental law. Now a three judge panel ruled that the agencies must go back and redo their work.

Since the Bureau of Land Management and U.S Fish and Wildlife Service let the pipeline be built, five species of fishes were heavily affected. Four of those five were already on endangered species list and were federally protected. The fishes were Lahontan cutthroat, the Warner sucker, Lost River sucker, shortnose sucker and the Modoc sucker. But thats not all 4 more fish were affect, they were Colarado River fish, the Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, razorback sucker and bonytail chub. There four like the other four, were also on the endangered species list.

You can see that the pipeline project affected the environment a lot, and the only reason it was built was because these agencies said it was ok too. The agencies violated The Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Environmental groups went over and reviewed the agencies research on the impacts and ruled that the biological opinion and record of decision were flawed and invalid. The Environmental groups also said that they want enforceable and fully funded mitigation.

The three judge's opinion is that the agencies biological opinion was flawed because they didn't account for about 338 million gallons of groundwater from 64 construction wells to be removed. Also the agencies miscalculated the number of fish that would be killed and put no limit on the number of eggs of Lahontan cutthroats that would be lost when the pipeline was built.

It is sad to see that the federal agencies that are in charge of making these important decisions, don't make the right one. They allowed 678 miles of pipeline to be built without learning the full extent of the impact on the environment that it may cause. Now its nice that the environmental groups were able to make the company fully fund mitigation and made sure that the mitigation was done, it doesn't change the fact that the pipeline is built. Also it can't change the impact on the environment that it already caused.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/ruby-natural-gas-pipeline-may-endanger-protected-fish-species-175337921.html