Mountain Valley Pipeline inspector fired for raising safety concerns, lawsuit says

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.

Barnhill’s complaint was moved to federal court Friday 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 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.

Spokespeople for Mountain Valley Pipeline and EQT did not respond to requests for comment.

Corroded joints were welded into pipeline, lawsuit says

In his complaint, Barnhill says 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.

Barnhill says he refused to approve the corroded joints and create falsified inspection reports regarding the joints.

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.

Complaint: lead inspector ordered hiding illegal weld

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.

The complaint was filed in Monroe County Circuit Court on Barnhill’s behalf by ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä-based attorney John-Mark Atkinson, seeking relief that includes lost wages and benefits, back and front pay, punitive damages, prejudgment interest and attorney fees and costs.

Environmental issues persisting since MVP entered service 

The National Association of Pipe Coating Applicators has recommended against aboveground storage of coated pipe for longer than six months without additional ultraviolet protection.

Arguing against project delays, Robert Cooper, testifying as Mountain Valley’s senior vice president in federal court in 2018 before some of the pipe laid uninstalled for years, said the pipeline needed to be installed within a year to guard against the sun breaking down the pipe’s coating designed to keep it from corroding.

In May 2024, 44 days before it was placed into service, the Mountain Valley Pipeline suffered a rupture in Roanoke County, Virginia, during hydrostatic pressure testing.

A Mountain Valley Pipeline-commissioned independent metallurgical analysis of the rupture filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in August 2024 found a majority of the pipe failure was at or near a fusion boundary of seam weld and base metals, where reduced strength was caused by a softening of base metal and possibly a lower-than-required ability to handle stress.

The report’s publisher, Dublin, Ohio-based quality assurance and risk management firm DNV GL USA Inc., found a majority of the pipe failure was at or near a fusion boundary of seam weld and base metals, where reduced strength was caused by a softening of base metal and possibly a lower-than-required ability to handle stress.

DNV found that tension-related properties of an elbow fitting didn’t meet requirements for the grade of steel at the time of construction, with a yield strength lower than required.

DNV observed no evidence of external or internal corrosion and found the external coating was adhered except for some portions adjacent to fracture surfaces that disbanded due to the rupture. There were no obvious preexisting flaws observed on the fracture surface, DNV reported.

After the PHMSA found project conditions may pose safety risks, Equitrans entered into a 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.