9-02-10 Elko Free Press
Court denies pipeline injunction, El Paso continues work after ruling from 9th Circuit
ELKO — The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the Center for Biological Diversity's emergency motion for an injunction against El Paso Corp.'s Ruby Pipeline Project that goes through Elko County.
"The order speaks for itself," El Paso Corp. spokesman Richard Wheatley said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, work continues on the 680-mile, $3 billion project, including preparations along the rights-of-way for the pipeline and on the four pipeline compressor stations, he said.
One of the compressor stations is in Elko County.
"We're disappointed at the court's decision not to grant the emergency injunction," Noah Greenwald, endangered species program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Wednesday.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed the motion on Aug. 19 to stop construction of the natural gas pipeline that will extend from Wyoming to Oregon while the appeals court considered the center's lawsuit over the project.
Greenwald said the court didn't write anything in the Tuesday order about the merits of the case, which will proceed through the briefing stages.
"We hope to have a decision by the end of the year and hope that ongoing construction will not have already done extensive damage," Greenwald said.
The lawsuit filed on July 30 with the 9th Circuit in San Francisco challenges the U.S. Bureau of Land's approval of rights-of-way for the pipeline and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's review of the expected impacts of the pipeline on endangered species.
The center is especially concerned about impact to endangered fish and to fish habitat as the pipeline crosses 209 streams, according to earlier statements.
Several counties and the Nevada chapter of the Sierra Club also are appealing the BLM's action, but with the Interior Board of Land Appeals.
"We believe there is a better route, and it's only 65 miles longer and would be far less environmentally damaging," the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club chairman, David Hornbeck, said Wednesday.
He said El Paso has filed a motion to dismiss the appeal.
The counties filing appeals were project supporters before El Paso Corp. reached an agreement with Western Watersheds Project and the Oregon Natural Desert Association to establish $20 million in conservation trusts.
El Paso agreed to the trusts in exchange for those organizations dropping their protests against the project.
The Wyoming counties filing with the ILBA include Lincoln, Sweetwater, Sublette and Uinta, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.
Statements from the environmental organizations that they hoped to purchase and retire grazing rights angered the Wyoming counties, as well as counties in Utah, Nevada and Oregon.
The counties formed a coalition that hoped to convince El Paso to back away from the agreement with Western Watersheds.
The grazing rights threat also angered ranchers, and the Public Lands Council has its own pending conservation agreement with El Paso Corp. as a result.
Nevada Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, said Wednesday the $15 million agreement between El Paso and the Public Lands Council "Is not a done deal. There is still no decision in Nevada to accept the money or not."
He said the board of directors of the Public Lands Council will vote on the Ruby deal during its annual meeting in Pendleton, Ore., later this month. Rhoads, who is a rancher, is the Nevada representative to the board.
The Ruby Pipeline is slated for discussion on Sept. 14, according to the Public Lands Council agenda.
Also in connection with the Ruby Pipeline, Elko County Commissioners are slated to vote today on a letter Chairman Charlie Myers wrote asking El Paso to back away from the agreement with Western Watersheds.
The commissioners will consider the letter in a special meeting at 3 p.m. in commission chambers.