Breaking News - Atlantic Bridge Receives NYSDEC Water Quality Certificate

Today, Enbridge's Algonquin Gas Transmission's Atlantic Bridge Project notified the FERC that it has received its Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certificate (WQC) permit from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). The FERC approved the project's certificate on January 25, 2017, but cannot issue a notice to proceed with construction until Atlantic Bridge receives permits from all required agencies. Algonquin filed the approved permit today in an effort to demonstrate to the FERC that the project is making significant progress toward receiving all of the necessary permits to begin construction. At this point, Atlantic Bridge still needs to receive required permits from Connecticut and Massachusetts, as well as from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The NYSDEC issuance may also prove impactful because of the NYSDEC's refusal to issue the same WQC for Williams' Constitution Pipeline Project, National Fuel Gas's Northern Access 2016 Project, and Millennium's CPV Lateral Project. Each of those projects is held up from starting construction without the WQC, with actions to force issuance pending in federal court. While the issuance of the WQC may appear to be welcome news for project developers in New York, it is also factually distinguishable from the Constitution, Northern Access and Millennium projects, primarily because the WQC for Atlantic Bridge involves replacement of an existing pipe in an existing right-of-way. The NYSDEC also approved the open cut method of crossing, which is significant because the NYSDEC rejected a similar method proposed in the Northern Access Project's stream crossing plan. As a result, today's issuance may be useful for both the NYSDEC in demonstrating that it is not arbitrarily refusing to issue WQCs, and for pipeline developers seeking to find a hole in the NYSDEC's decision making.