This summer, in a highly unusual move, Congress stepped in to fast-track the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. After years of stop-and-go construction, there’s now a mad dash to finish the natural gas line stretching just over 300 miles from the northern border of West Virginia to southern Virginia.

That’s largely due to one man: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, who convinced other legislators and President Joe Biden to greenlight the controversial pipeline as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

Across a largely rural, mountainous area, the pipeline’s 50-foot easement traverses hundreds of bodies of water, crosses fields, plunges into valleys, climbs steep slopes and passes near homes, businesses and at least one school. Along many of the final stretches awaiting completion, churned-up soil and construction equipment signal busy activity.