PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release: July 27, 2026
Media Contacts:
Rachel Chu, Southern Environmental Law Center, [email protected]
Kelly Marshall, Alabama Rivers Alliance, [email protected]
Unchecked gas pipeline permit scheme challenged in federal court
Southern conservation groups call foul at fast-track construction permit, citing Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act violations
WASHINGTON – Today the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of Alabama Rivers Alliance, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Healthy Gulf, Ogeechee Riverkeeper, and Savannah Riverkeeper, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit scheme that allows companies constructing oil and gas pipelines to sidestep federal laws that protect waterways, rare species, and other aquatic resources.
The Corps’ Nationwide Permit (NWP) 12 authorizes oil and gas pipeline construction through waterways before projects are even proposed. NWP 12 violates the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Administrative Procedure Act. The lawsuit challenges the permit’s use nationally but highlights the impact of two proposed methane gas pipeline projects: South System Expansion 4 and Mississippi Crossing. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“This permit is a hall pass for companies to dodge compliance with environmental laws that protect communities, clean water, and wildlife in a pipeline’s path,” SELC staff attorney Spencer Scheidt said. “For years, the Army Corps has cut the public out of the decision-making process for destructive pipelines that degrade local streams and waterways. Instead, the agency effectively assumes pipeline companies will ‘do the right thing’—even though history shows that’s not happening.”
“The hundreds of Alabamians that live in the communities across the 10 county route of this pipeline deserve an opportunity to comment on the permitting of a project that stands to impact their health, their waterways and sensitive ecosystems. Allowing this pipeline to fall under NWP 12 robs them of that opportunity,” said Cindy Lowry, executive director of the Alabama Rivers Alliance.
Nationwide Permits may only be used to authorize activities with minimal environmental impacts, but the Army Corps uses NWP 12 to permit projects that span hundreds of miles and impact thousands of waterways. Pipeline construction devastates ecosystems. Developers use explosives or heavy machinery to dig and backfill trenches in waterways, crushing and killing fish, amphibians, and other species in their path. These activities also release sediment into waterways that choke aquatic wildlife and degrade water quality. NWP 12 allows pipeline companies – not federal regulators as required by law – to determine whether to engage in a formal review of endangered and threatened species impacts. The Corps admits recovery of biodiversity post-construction under NWP 12 is rare.
“Streams such as French Creek are essential to freshwater flows, wetland habitat, fishing, and hunting in the lower Black Warrior River watershed,” said Nelson Brooke, Black Warrior Riverkeeper. “Destructively trenching a methane pipeline through creeks and wetlands is shortsighted and unnecessary.”
The lawsuit specifically points to two proposed pipeline projects that would lay nearly 500 miles of new pipe across Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia: South System Expansion 4 and Mississippi Crossing. Project developers — Southern Natural Gas (Kinder Morgan and Southern Company), Elba Express (Kinder Morgan), and Tennessee Gas Pipeline (Kinder Morgan) — plan to use NWP 12 to construct pipelines through 2,200 waterbodies and mow down trees and vegetation across 11,000 acres – about 8,300 football fields. These projects would harm federally protected species’ habitat across three states without any public input or site-specific environmental review for the Nationwide Permit. Pipeline construction could begin as early as this summer.
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