While the St. Louis-based Spire STL Pipeline has gone to FERC hoping to avoid a complete shutdown of its 65-mile pipeline, the company is accused by an environmental group of making “false and defamatory” claims against it.
Spire asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday to reissue a certificate of operation that a federal court had vacated earlier this year. Without the certificate, the pipeline will shut down operations in mid-December. The company says as a result, some major businesses in St. Louis such as Anheuser-Busch will lose natural gas service.
The latest allegation came from the Environmental Defense Fund which successfully challenge Spire’s certificate of operation. It contends St. Louis area residents have been made profanity-laced threats to it.
On the same day Spire went to FERC, the New York-based EDF sent a letter to the company complaining that Spire’s public campaign “mislead and inspired individuals to direct menacing and threatening messages to individuals as EDF,” reported the Missouri Independent.
FERC will consider Spire’s case on Thursday.
