The company behind a controversial proposed natural-gas pipeline has filed dozens of federal lawsuits against local landowners, even though there are serious doubts it will ever carry gas. “There’s so many ifs with this project that it should not be difficult for a federal judge in Greensboro, North Carolina, to say, ‘What’s the hurry here?’” said Chuck Lollar, an eminent-domain lawyer in Norfolk, Va., representing a number of landowners trying to keep the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from getting easements across their properties. The MVP Southgate would carry Marcellus and Utica Shale gas from the MVP terminus in Pittsylvania County, Va., to the Dominion Energy distribution system south of Graham. The collaboration of five energy companies behind the project filed more than 35 condemnation suits in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina in January against more than 100 landowners in North Carolina including 38 in Alamance County, according to a letter District 63 state Rep. Ricky Hurtado wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month.