In late May 2020, Meade County commissioners approved a variance request to extend a building permit to construct a workforce camp for TransCanada Keystone Pipeline/TC Energy with a stipulation of increased building fees.
The Opal Temporary Workforce Camp will be located near Faith in northeastern Meade County next to the Cheyenne River Reservation. Plans for the camp are still being developed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed construction of the pipeline.
Construction on the camp is expected to resume in the third quarter of 2020 and civil work and underground plumbing would be done in fall so mobile units for housing could be delivered and set up. Construction would then shut down for winter and resume in spring 2021 with the expectation it would be occupied by next summer.
Pipeline construction in the county is not expected until 2021.
The pipeline can only be completed if TC Energy wins an appeal after a federal judge in Montana recently cancelled a key permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that's needed to build across hundreds of streams, wetlands and other water bodies along its route.
