Groups mount new challenge to Ruby natural gas pipeline route across Utah, northern Nevada

Groups mount new challenge to Ruby pipeline plan

SALT LAKE CITY — Environmental groups are again asking a federal appeals court to stop a plan to build a $3 billion natural gas pipeline from Wyoming to Oregon.

Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter and Great Basin Resource Watch filed a new challenge to the Ruby Pipeline last week with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

They allege the federal Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers didn’t conduct adequate environmental reviews.

A Sierra Club official told the Deseret News in Salt Lake City that planners failed to consider potential harm to water, public and tribal lands, and wildlife.

“We are not opposed to a gas pipeline, but the route that Ruby Pipeline has chosen is wrong for Nevada,” David von Seggern said. “Damage could be greatly reduced and more jobs created closer to where they’re needed if they’d only move the pipeline to existing roads and developed corridors, maybe only 65 miles longer.”

Environmental groups contend the pipeline would harm “pristine” and undeveloped lands and threaten an estimated 800 cultural sites and breeding areas for imperiled sage grouse. They also say the pipeline would cross nearly 1,100 bodies of water, posing another possible threat.

The 9th Circuit rejected earlier requests to halt construction of the 680-mile pipeline from Wyoming across Utah and northern Nevada to Malin, Ore.

Information from: Deseret News, www.deseretnews.com