The two joint ventures planning to route 42-inch diameter natural gas pipelines through forests and fields long to hear the whining roar and chatter of chainsaws felling trees.
Both the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline hope to start clearing trees in mid-November from construction rights-of-way for the buried pipelines. There is an urgency to get started: The projects plan to suspend felling trees after March 31 to comply with federal conservation guidelines tied to potential impacts to the Indiana bat, a federally endangered species, and the northern long-eared bat, a threatened species.
Restricting tree clearing to the period from mid-November to the end of March also protects some species of migratory birds that nest during other months of the year.
