Mountain Valley Pipeline wrongful-firing lawsuit renews project safety concerns

Michael Barnhill of Hardin County, Texas, said he was fired from a welding inspector position on Dec. 8, 2023 — one day after he reported an illegal weld to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration that he contends the pipeline’s developers intended to hide from the agency.

Barnhill has sued Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, the joint venture behind the 303.5-mile, 42-inch-diameter gas pipeline that travels through 11 West Virginia and six Virginia counties, Washington County, Pennsylvania-based Equitrans Midstream Corp. and EQT Corp.

Pittsburgh-based EQT, one of the nation’s largest gas producers, acquired Mountain Valley Pipeline lead developer Equitrans Midstream Corp. last year after it announced it had reached a deal that would yield an initial enterprise value — generally how much a business is worth — of more than $35 billion.

Citing a June 3 Gazette-Mail report on the lawsuit, Monroe County resident Paula Mann said in a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission three days later she was “very concerned for the safety of myself and my family.�

Mann said her home is about 1,000 feet from the pipeline and that she can see the pipeline from her house.

“There needs to be immediate action taken to shut this pipeline down until this matter can be further investigated and action taken to inspect and fix any of the welds that do not meet the requirements,� Mann said. “Those of us who live near this pipeline have our lives put in danger if this pipeline is not shut down immediately.�

Also citing the Gazette-Mail’s report, Monroe County landowner Maury Johnson, one of the pipeline’s most vocal opponents for years, called on the FERC or the PHMSA to immediately shut the pipeline down “until it can be deemed safe� in a June 4 letter filed with the FERC.

“My life and the life of my family, friends and neighbors are at stake,� Johnson said.

PHMSA, FERC quiet on allegations in lawsuit 

The PHMSA hasn’t responded to a Gazette-Mail request under the Freedom of Information Act for correspondence related to Barnhill’s allegations.

A PHMSA spokesperson said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation, noting that if the agency identifies unsafe conditions or probable violations of our regulations, it initiates enforcement proceedings. The PHMSA conducts onsite inspections to ensure construction and operating procedures comply with agency regulations, the spokesperson noted in an email.

The PHMSA spokesperson did not respond when asked whether the agency is investigating conditions in response to Barnhill’s lawsuit.

FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller declined to comment, saying the agency doesn’t comment on court matters or matters pending before the agency. The FERC has no jurisdiction over pipeline safety but works with other agencies that have safety responsibilities.

MVP defends its safety oversight 

In a Thursday letter to the FERC, a Mountain Valley Pipeline executive defended the company’s safety oversight, saying the PHMSA reviewed and approved company welding procedures used on the pipeline.

Jeffrey Klinefelter, vice president of construction and engineering at Mountain Valley Pipeline, indicated to the FERC that the PHMSA had reviewed joints implicated in the lawsuit and was satisfied with how the company conducted the installations. The procedures required visual inspection and nondestructive testing of all finished welds to confirm their integrity, Klinefelter said.

“MVP’s top priority is pipeline safety,� Klinefelter said.

The defendants filed a pending motion to dismiss Barnhill’s lawsuit on June 6, alleging in part that none of them ever employed him and, therefore, could not have terminated his employment.

After the PHMSA found project conditions may pose safety risks, Equitrans entered into a 2023 consent agreement with the agency requiring pipeline coating and dent detection surveys.

The pipeline was designed to cross over 75 miles of slopes greater than 30%, an unusually high amount of pipeline over slopes that steep.

Environmental issues have persisted throughout the project route since the pipeline entered into service, with Mountain Valley Pipeline filings with the FERC reporting recurring land slips and signs of subsidence near pipeline crossings.

Barnhill alleged corrosion in three pipe joint areas  

In his complaint, Barnhill said he discovered corrosion in three separate sections of pipeline joints on Nov. 15, 2023, that was significant enough to make them noncompliant with construction specifications and federal regulations.

Barnhill alleges his supervisor, David Mitchell, lead welding inspector for Mountain Valley Pipeline, agreed with him the corroded joints were out of compliance during a phone call that day but said that Damon Bowers, the pipeline’s chief inspector, directed the joints to be installed.

Mitchell quoted Bowers as saying, “If you want to keep your job, just install [the joints],� according to the complaint.

The next day, Barnhill alleges, he was moved to a different section of the pipeline and replaced with a less experienced welding inspector because he refused to approve the welding of the corroded joints. They later were approved and welded into the pipeline, according to the complaint.

Barnhill later became aware of the corroded joints were used in the pipeline despite being out of compliance with federal regulations and reported welding of three corroded pipe joints to the PHMSA, per the complaint.

Plaintiff said he was told to 'stop [expletive] arguing'

Barnhill’s complaint contends he discovered a weld on Dec. 5, 2023, made without an inspector present despite construction specifications requiring an inspector to be on hand for all pipeline welds.

The complaint notes that, without welding in compliance with stringent heat controls, a gas pipeline is prone to cracking and weld failure.

After Barnhill contacted his supervisors to inform them of the illegal welding, Barnhill’s supervisors, Mitchell and Bowers, initially agreed the illegal weld was unacceptable and would need to be cut out.

But in a Dec. 6, 2023, phone conversation, Mitchell instructed Barnhill to change his report to conceal the illegality of the weld performed without an inspector, the complaint states.

Later that day, Bowers called Barnhill to confront him about his refusal to amend the report, the complaint states, asserting that Bowers directed Barnhill to ask the welders whether they preheated the pipe and simply document their response.

Barnhill responded that he couldn’t document the pipe as being preheated when he hadn’t observed it.

Bowers then yelled, “Michael, stop [expletive] arguing, I’m gonna send your report back to you. Are you willing to do what we are asking you to do?� according to the complaint.

Barnhill changed his report but still stated the weld was “unacceptable,� per his complaint.

The next day, Barnhill reported the illegal weld to PHMSA Eastern Region Director Joe Klesin via email, the lawsuit states, relaying that he was directed to “document hearsay� and that he could “arrive at no logical conclusion for the explicitly required directive to document that hearsay� other than as an attempt by Bowers and a project manager to hide use of an illegal weld.

A project manager identified in the complaint as “John Z� told Barnhill during a conference call the same day it was “disconcerting� that Barnhill kept documenting that the weld was unacceptable and that he was sure Barnhill could “appreciate what a problem that would cause if this document was audited,� per the complaint.

The defendants cut out the illegal weld and replaced it with a weld inspected and approved by Barnhill the next day, Dec. 8, 2023, and fired him later that day, according to the lawsuit.

'Never part of that deal'

Barnhill’s complaint was moved to federal court after it was filed on April 29 in Monroe County Circuit Court. The lawsuit follows years of safety concerns over the structural integrity of the steel pipeline, with project critics worrying that years of sunlight compromised the pipe’s coating, as some of it had been laid uninstalled along the project route for years before installation.

After years of legal setbacks rooted in erosion and sedimentation control failures, the pipeline was placed into service in June 2024. Construction was fast-tracked in June 2023 by Congress through the Fiscal Responsibility Act, sprawling debt limit legislation that controversially mandated the project’s completion, with key backing from then-U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., as Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman, and the rest of West Virginia’s congressional delegation.

Russell Chisholm, managing director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition, a coalition of West Virginia and Virginia groups that have opposed the pipeline, said that regardless of the outcome of Barnhill’s complaint, his allegations “turn up the volume on warnings we have been sounding for years.�

Chisholm noted that Congress declared Mountain Valley Pipeline to be in the national interest when it inserted itself into the permitting process through the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

“The safety of our communities clearly was never part of that deal,� Chisholm said, “and it is long past time to correct that."