While actual pipeline construction has not started, Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality has cited the Atlantic Coast Pipeline for failing to maintain adequate distance from wetlands and streams at 15 separate central Virginia locations while conducting tree felling this winter.
DEQ said in a Friday release that the violations fall under Virginia's State Water Control Law and forbid work within buffer zones to protect stream and wetland crossings.
The violations were offered to DEQ and federal regulators after the builders of the pipeline self-reported being outside the permitted areas in four central Virginia counties: Buckingham, Cumberland, Prince Edward and Nottoway, said Aaron Ruby, a spokesman for Dominion Energy and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
