Tag Archives: fracking

Pipe dream or nightmare?

Work on the MVP pipeline

Work on the MVP pipeline

Last Saturday, Lovettsville residents and citizens from across Virginia and other states as far away as Georgia, traveled to the Bears’ Den on the Appalachian trail on the Loudoun County side of Mount Weather, to share the view that fracked gas pipelines must be stopped and the scenic trail saved from “desecration.”

The folks who came were young and old, some ordinarily political partisans, but they came together, despite their differences, resolved to stop these pipelines.

If there could be any doubt about what they “really” thought, they posed with a mock 1-foot diameter pipeline segment, “inscribed,” “NO FRACKING PIPELINE.”

It was only a hint of the EQT and Nextra’s proposed 300-mile $3.2-Billion Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a pipe almost four feet in diameter, carrying dangerous odorless fracked gas from West Virginia that threatens the trail and the environment.

There were testaments from the speakers, objecting to taking the land by eminent domain, and complaints about the proposed pipe’s adverse effects including air pollution, soil erosion, groundwater contamination, terrible noise levels, lowered property values, and possible onsite accidents including gas explosions like has already occurred in Appomattox, Virginia.

If the pipeline is sited as presently proposed, speakers charged, it shall destroy once and forever the natural view shed along 100 miles of the 2,200-mile scenic Appalachian Trail, including Angels Rest, Kelly Knob, Rice Fields and Dragons Tooth — among the most visited and photographed locations on the entire trail that extends from Georgia to Maine. Continue reading

Is protest the only way to be heard?

Phil Little Thunder Sr. protesting

Phil Little Thunder Sr. protesting

Phil Little Thunder Sr. joined the protest of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota – an iconic figure marching with thousands from other tribal nations – in order to stop a noxious crude oil pipeline from tunneling under Lake Oahe, a tribe’s crucial water source, fearing the pipe will leak its oleaginous poisons into these life-giving waters, and because the line, if not adjusted, will destroy the tribe’s burial grounds, and historic and ancestral cultural sites.

The proposed Dakota Access pipeline, if allowed to proceed, under the auspices of “Energy Transfer Partners,” would travel 1,170 miles, crossing the Sioux land, en route to the Gulf coast.

You may think this has nothing to do with the Commonwealth of Virginia.  But there are lessons to learn so we may resist the risky fossil fuel industry energy choices close to home including Dominion’s effort to lay 550 miles of fracked gas pipelines within feet of the homes of many Virginia landowners, at the risk of these volatile gases exploding, as did occur in Appomattox, Virginia.

We can’t count on the General Assembly, not the Democratic nor Republican parties, as Dominion has showered its financial largesse on key members of both parties.

The success or failure in fighting this Dakota pipeline and the key lessons learned from the defeat of the XL pipeline instruct us how to represent ourselves when those elected fail to represent us.

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg denied the tribe’s demands to stop the pipeline, saying that the tribe had failed to show “it will suffer injury.”  In what alternate universe is the risk that a critical water source may be destroyed not a cognizable “injury?”  Continue reading

Dominion’s 550 mile toxic gas pipeline

dominionpipelineWe all resent the fact that Dominion Power owns the elected officials and pols in both parties in the Commonwealth of Virginia, rather than having our elected “representatives” represent “our” interests.

Dominion Power dictates legislation that favors its unrestrained exploitation of our natural resources in derogation of our individual rights and liberties.

Only days ago, our leaders in both parties told us that it was a good deal for us to have a floor on electricity rates and to exempt Dominion from regulatory oversight for seven years.

Last year, the General Assembly gave Dominion a $400 million corporate welfare write-off for a plant that Dominion may never build.

A particularly obvious example of personal excess is a million dollar state grant to Dominion’s CEO, Thomas Farell, to make a civil war movie.

Unsurprisingly, Dominion has no hesitation about planning a 550 mile 42-inch wide pipeline, called the Atlantic Pipeline, from Harrison County, WV, through Virginia, and on to North Carolina, full of fracked and toxic liquid natural gas, 1.5 billion cubic feet a day, at a pressure of 1,440 psig, extracted from the Marcellus shale fields in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

In order to build this pipeline, Dominion shall destroy swaths of forests and private property, compromise wildlife and historic venues, and, when they’re done, if we don’t stop this juggernaut now, there will be toxic liquid natural gas (LNG) spills and leaks. Continue reading