Activist Victories In Fight Against Appalachia Pipelines, Atlantic Coast, Mt. Valley Resistance
"Activists Get Big Victories In Fight Against Appalachia Pipelines, Both the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines Are Meeting A Wall of Resistance," By E.A. Crunden, Think Progress, Aug. 13, 2018. Excerpts:
On Friday, ongoing environmentalist resistance efforts dealt another major setback to two pipelines under construction in Virginia when a federal agency demanded an end to all work on one of the pipelines. In a letter sent to Dominion Energy last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said that the company would need to stop all work on the Atlantic Coast pipeline (ACP) until the permit problems plaguing the nearly 600-mile project are resolved. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit vacated two permits for the pipeline over concerns about its impact on public lands and endangered animals.
“Accordingly, allowing continued construction poses the risk of expending substantial resources and substantially disturbing the environment by constructing facilities that ultimately might have to be relocated or abandoned,” wrote Terry Turpin, director of FERC’s Office of Energy Projects, halting the pipeline in light of the permit decisions.
Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Greg Buppert, whose organization challenged the permits, said in a statement that FERC had made “the right decision” and said the agency should get to the bottom of Dominion Energy’s “over-blown and unsupported claims” of the public benefits the company has claimed the pipeline will bring...
FERC’s decision marks another major hurdle for energy interests attempting to build large-scale pipelines running through the South and Appalachia. The ACP is set to span from West Virginia to North Carolina, running through Virginia in the process. Dominion Energy is the lead stakeholder for the pipeline, which would carry roughly 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily. Both the ACP and MVP have sparked uproar from environmental and health activists, in addition to furious residents. Collectively, the two pipelines would cross around 1,000 waterways and crossings in Virginia, according to a February environmental assessment. The risk of spills and contamination could threaten such areas, leaving both residents and wildlife vulnerable...
Racial justice groups have also entered the fray. In May, the Virginia NAACP sent a letter to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) emphasizing the historic civil rights group’s objections to both the ACP and MVP. Released last month by the group Virginia Wild following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the letter argues that communities of color will suffer disproportionately from proximity to the pipelines, which could harm drinking water. - Read More, https://thinkprogress.org/virginia-appalachia-pipelines-activism-setbacks-dc16ef76b9fb/
Dominion's 564-mile Atlantic Coast pipeline would come through Scott & Sally Shomo's farm, Shomo Ag LLC, just west of Staunton, Va.