Constitution Pipeline asked FERC on Thursday to dismiss a complaint by New York’s attorney general alleging illegal tree cutting, requesting fast-track resolution to the ongoing dispute over the proposed 124-mile natural gas project (CP13-499).

The company vehemently denied allegations made by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman that it encouraged illegal tree cutting by landowners in defiance of a FERC prohibition, calling the complaint “part of a pattern seeking to delay construction.”

“The complaint does not contain any evidence that ‘clear-cutting’ … has occurred or, if it did occur, that it was performed or caused by Constitution,” the company wrote. “Instead, the complaint merely contains vague allegations that landowners or the landowners’ logging companies, against whom the attorney general seeks no enforcement action, conducted tree clearing, road building or other ground disturbing activity on the pipeline right of way in New York, in 10 locations [that] the attorney general refuses to, and fails to, describe with any specificity sufficient to actually identify any of them.”

Constitution said the vagueness of the attorney general’s complaint required that FERC appoint an administrative law judge to develop a complete record. It also said that fast-track processing was necessary because the complaint alleged ongoing violations of federal law.

Schneiderman wants FERC to investigate the company and assess it fines. (See New York Demands Probe of Tree Cutting on Pipeline Route.)

The pipeline is intended to bring shale gas from the Marcellus region of Pennsylvania into the New York and New England markets.

In April, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation denied Constitution a water quality permit under Section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act. Constitution last month appealed the permit denial in federal court. (See Constitution Pipeline Appeals Rejection of Water Permit.)

– William Opalka