A federal appeals court halted a key water permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline Monday. The court’s stay on the Army Corps of Engineers permit means the proposed gas pipeline is prohibited from crossing the nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands along its 300-mile route across West Virginia and southwestern Virginia until a full ruling on the merits of the permit’s validity can be made. Such a ruling is likely to come sometime next year, giving the incoming Biden administration a chance to weigh in. The beleaguered MVP is now behind schedule and significantly over budget. Construction delays are costing developers $20 million a month, which advocates say is largely due to developers’ failures to prevent construction from contaminating nearby streams. Another pipeline, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have stretched through Virginia, from West Virginia to North Carolina, was canceled earlier this year. (AP, Roanoke Times, Charleston Gazette-Mail, The Hill, Seeking Alpha, Bloomberg Law)