NEW YORK, NY -- Today, a court rejected the Constitution Pipeline Company’s appeal to block the ability of New York state authorities to exercise oversight over water quality permits for major projects.
"Today’s ruling reinforces that regardless of how much money corporate polluters may spend on influence and attorneys, they can never speak louder than the people who want to protect their homes, their communities, and their clean water from dirty and dangerous projects,” said Lena Moffitt, Senior Director of the Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign. “The Constitution Pipeline would have threatened communities and our clean air and water. People from Pennsylvania to New York knew it, Governor Cuomo knew it, Attorney General Schneider knew it, and the Second Circuit confirmed it. We’re glad the courts have once again affirmed states’ rights to reject dirty and dangerous projects.”
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied the company's case against the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) in a twenty-eight page decision that describes in detail DEC's repeated requests for site-specific information about stream crossings, and the pipeline company's complete failure to provide it.
Catherine Holleran of New Milford, Pennsylvania, who has seen the Constitution Pipeline Company cut trees down on her family’s land stated, “We never wanted this pipeline which will cut through and destroy or home and legacy. All along we begged and implored Constitution to spare our property, but they went so far as to drag us into court to ensure their progression, forcing us to stand by and watch the desecration of our land. Today we are sad to have been proven right. They took our property for nothing, they destroyed more than 550 trees in our fields for no other reason than they wanted to prove a point. It is a great thing that the court did, but sad for us that the company wouldn't listen to us initially.”
Today’s decision is a victory for states’ rights and people who have fought for years against the fracked gas pipeline. It once again stops the fracked gas Constitution Pipeline from being built.
“With today’s ruling, the Court of Appeals has affirmed the rights of states to reasonably protect their water resources from oversized infrastructure projects that run roughshod over states' natural resources,” said Roger Downs, Conservation Director, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter. The Sierra Club applauds Governor Cuomo’s leadership in protecting New York’s water and Attorney General Schneiderman’s legal defense of the decision to halt the Constitution Pipeline.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo rejected the permit for the Constitution Pipeline in September of 2016.
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About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.