BATON ROUGE, La.— The Louisiana Department of Conservation and Energy yesterday approved a coastal use permit for Shell’s proposed Rome Export Pipeline. The pipeline is contracted to ship all the oil from BP’s proposed Kaskida ultra-deepwater drilling project. Environmental and community groups had urged the department to reject the permit, citing the pipeline’s risks to communities, endangered wildlife and coastal restoration projects.

“Approving the enormous Rome Pipeline is a terrible decision that will bind the Gulf even more tightly to a destructive future soaked in oil. If the pipeline is fully built as planned, it’ll enable a new era of high-risk ultra-deepwater drilling,” said Nick Katkevich, an oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I’m disappointed that Louisiana signed off on this dangerous project without even holding a public hearing about oil spills and other risks, but we’ll keep fighting to protect the Gulf from dangerous pipelines and deepwater drilling projects like Kaskida.”

The Rome Pipeline is a 100-mile-long section of more than 500 miles of proposed pipeline that would ship oil and gas from the Kaskida project, which is BP’s first totally new oil field since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The wells at Kaskida would be drilled at much greater depth in the Gulf than Deepwater Horizon, raising concerns of another catastrophe.

In April the Trump administration approved the final plans for Kaskida. The Center for Biological Diversity and other groups have sued to overturn the decision. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is now reviewing an application for BP’s Tiber-Guadalupe development, the “sister” project to Kaskida that also would be drilled at ultra-deepwater depths.

The Rome Pipeline would ship oil from a major offshore platform and pipeline hub in the Gulf to a terminal near Port Fourchon, Louisiana. The route would cross critical habitat for the Rice’s whale, Kemp's ridley sea turtle, and other endangered species. The pipeline would then cross under the Caminada Headland beach, an area that has received $200 million for a major coastal restoration project. Once ashore Rome would connect with existing pipeline systems leading to processing facilities in St. James and other Louisiana communities already facing environmental justice challenges.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently reviewing a federal water quality permit application for the Rome Pipeline. Advocates are urging the agency to reject the permit, which is under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, and to host a public hearing to gather community input.