MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Environmentalists and activists claimed victory Saturday after a company canceled plans to build an oil pipeline through southwest Tennessee and north Mississippi, and over an aquifer that provides drinking water to 1 million people.

Byhalia Connection said it will no longer pursue plans to build a 49-mile underground artery that would have linked two major U.S. oil pipelines while running through wetlands and under poor, predominantly Black neighborhoods in south Memphis.

A joint venture between Valero and Plains All American Pipeline, Byhalia Connection had said the pipeline would bring jobs and tax revenue to the region – and it had given to Memphis-area charities and tried to build goodwill in the community. But, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday, Byhalia Connection said it was canceling the project “due to lower U.S. oil production resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“We value the relationships we’ve built through the development of this project, and appreciate those that supported the project,” Byhalia Connection’s statement said.

Byhalia Connection would have linked the east-west Diamond Pipeline through the Valero refinery in Memphis to the north-south Capline Pipeline near Byhalia, Mississippi. The Capline, which has transported crude oil from a Louisiana port on the Gulf of Mexico north to the Midwest, is being reversed to deliver oil south through Mississippi to refineries and export terminals on the Gulf.

Byhalia Connection also would have run through well fields above the Memphis Sand Aquifer, which provides slightly sweet drinking water to the Memphis area. Environmentalists, activist groups, lawyers, property owners, national and local elected officials, and even former Vice President Al Gore opposed the project. They feared an oil spill would have endangered waterways and possibly contaminated the water being pumped out of the ground through wells located along the planned route.

Opponents said the plans reminded them of environmental racism – the practice of placing toxic factories, landfills and other polluters in minority neighborhoods and Indigenous areas, where voiceless residents only realize the danger after people get sick.

The pipeline would have run under Memphis neighborhoods such as White Chapel, Westwood and Boxtown, which began as a community of freed slaves in the 1860s and where homes had no running water or electricity as recently as the 1970s.

Justin J. Pearson, a leader of the Memphis Community Against the Pipeline activist group, called the decision “an extraordinary testament to what Memphis and Shelby County can do when citizens build power toward justice.”

Byhalia Connection had said the pipeline would be built a safe distance from the aquifer, which sits much deeper than the planned pipeline route.

Byhalia Connection also has said the pipeline route was not driven by factors such as race or class. The company denied accusations of environmental racism that emerged after a Byhalia Connection land agent said during a community meeting the developers “took, basically, a point of least resistance” in choosing the pipeline’s path.