MVP contractor not adhering to Virginia Governor’s emergency order

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Spring 2020 issue: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/Spring2020.pdf
Index to this and other issues: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/index.htm

~By Mark Barker 

On March 12 Virginia Governor Northam declared a State of Emergency to combat COVID-19.  Governor Northam directed state agencies to limit in-person meetings and non-essential, work-related gatherings.   Five days later on March 17 he announced additional measures saying, “Everyone must play a role to help flatten the curve and mitigate the spread of this virus, and that starts with social distancing…”

On March 23, Governor Northam took further steps to slow the impacts of COVID-19.   He ordered the closure of certain non-essential businesses and urged all Virginians to avoid non-essential travel outside the home.  This was reinforced a week later on March 30 when the Governor issued a Stay at Home order effective until June 10. According to the state press release, this order is “to protect the health and safety of Virginians and mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.” It directs all Virginians to stay home except in extremely limited circumstances. 

ESI vehicles parked off a rural road in Franklin County, VA on April 7

On April 7, many employees of an out of state MVP contractor, who specializes in environmental studies, were observed working along the incomplete MVP route in Franklin County.   Our chapter Preserve Franklin observed several Environmental Solutions and Innovations (ESI) vehicles, mostly with Ohio tags.  

It's hard to imagine why an incomplete natural gas pipeline would qualify as an essential business.  Not to mention the non-essential travel involved. It does no good for Franklin County citizens to follow Governor Northam’s orders to stay home when outsiders, who could very well be carrying the COVID-19 virus into our rural communities, are moving throughout the area. The ESI workers were also observed not following  social distancing guidelines.

This is just another blatant example of MVP not following the rules and endangering communities along its path. 

Chapter update: Madison County Clean Power Coalition works for statewide ban on burning creosote railroad ties for energy

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Spring 2020 issue: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/Spring2020.pdf
Index to this and other issues: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/index.htm

GRP Biomass Plant Toxic Creosote Emissions  

by Ruth Ann Tesanovich

Citizens of Madison County, Georgia became outraged in the summer of 2019 when a new biomass plant, Madison Georgia Renewable Power (GRP), broke their promise to burn only clean forest products and instead began burning creosote treated railroad ties.

We saw our air, land, and water being polluted, our health and property rights violated. We united to form the Madison County Clean Power Coalition (MCCPC) in November, 2019. Our mission is to protect the environment and advocate for communities polluted by the processing and burning of carcinogenic creosote treated wood.

Stacks of Creosote RR Ties at GRP Plant

At this time, we began to work closely with a citizens’ group from neighboring Franklin County, GA who shared similar concerns. The “twin sister GRP Biomass Plants” in our two northeast Georgia counties are the
only plants in Georgia burning creosote railroad ties for power generation.

MCCPC held public educational meetings, started social media and website pages, and organized hundreds of concerned citizens. We wrote letters to our local newspapers, attended and spoke out at county government meetings, donated time and money, placed hundreds of Stop Burning RR Ties signs
along roadsides, signed over 2500 petitions, and protested.

We became citizen watchdogs on the plant operations and filed complaints, accompanied by photos, to the Georgia Environmental Protection
Divisions which resulted in air, land and water notice of violations to plant officials.

In early January, MCCPC was proud to become the first new BREDL chapter of 2020. A lot has happened since then. We thank Lou Zeller, Jenn Galler, and Renee Cail of BREDL for offering support and traveling long distances to help us with our fight.

We are working to impose a statewide ban on burning creosote railroad ties for power generation. Those efforts have been slowed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stay tuned!

Cartoon by Lark Treadwell, Winterville GA

BREDL’s new podcast: In Our Backyard

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Spring 2020 issue: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/Spring2020.pdf
Index to this and other issues: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/index.htm

Spring 2020 
By Jenn Galler

This February, BREDL released its new “In Our Backyard Podcast”. This is a new media platform that we believe will benefit our chapters’ work and inform a broader audience on environmental issues that are unfolding right in our backyards.

This is different from any other media or news outlet because it is
conversational. You can hear through people’s voices and tones the passion, anger, grief, intensity, and a whole range of emotions that are hard to portray any other way. It shows how powerful our voices are. It’s also a form of personal storytelling which evokes an emotional response from the audience,
hopefully prompting them to get involved and take action.

What is a podcast? Good question, it’s an audio show, spread across a series of episodes, which can be downloaded from the Internet and listened to either on a computer or smartphone. The term “podcast”, coined in 2004, is portmanteau of “IPod” and “broadcast”.

I talk with activists, experts, and people on the ground covering and fighting these issues. The In Our Backyard Podcast highlights a wide array of people and injustices that are happening on local, national, and even international levels. Through interviewing and talking with these people, I’ve learned about
the complexity of the issues these communities are facing and am inspired by all that is going on.

Currently, there are 10+ episodes out, with topics including PFAS, coal ash, nuclear weapons, proposed mining sites and much more.


 New episodes come out every Friday
at 10 AM so be on the lookout. You
can listen at
https://anchor.fm/bredl or
anywhere you listen to podcasts.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Spring 2020 issue: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/Spring2020.pdf
Index to this and other issues: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/index.htm

Spring 2020 

By Louis A. Zeller, Executive Director  

 The death rate of the COVID-19 coronavirus is greatly increased by air pollution. According to a recent study done by the Harvard School of Public Health, “A small increase in long-term exposure to PM-2.5 leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rate….” PM-2.5 is microscopic particulate matter of 2½ microns in diameter, or one third the diameter of a human hair. PM-2.5 is an air pollutant directly caused by combustion of fuels—coal, oil, natural gas, biomass—or formed in the air by pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emitted from power plants, industries and automobiles. Its small size allows the pollutant to penetrate deep into the lungs where the damage is done.
The Harvard study collected data from 3,000 counties across the United States covering 98% of the population. The analysis compensates for behavioral and socioeconomic factors including obesity and smoking.* The study concluded, “We found that an increase of only 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate…” With the expected death toll caused by COVID-19 in the United States ranging from 100,000 to 254,000, this would mean that a one microgram per cubic meter difference in fine particle pollution makes a difference of some 15,000 to 36,000 deaths.

In the mid-Atlantic and Appalachian region of the United States, the midrange level of PM-2.5 is 11.35 μg/m3, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. In urban areas the level can reach 19.2 μg/m3. Three years ago, the same Harvard school revealed that exposure to airborne PM-2.5 even at levels below National Ambient Air Quality Standards then in force increased the risk of premature death. And that blacks and low-income populations had risks upwards of three times as high. Conversely, they found that by lowering the level of PM-2.5 by 1 microgram per cubic meter about 12,000 lives could be saved annually nationwide. But by abandoning the Paris climate accord, revoking America’s Clean Power Plan, repealing corporate average fuel economy standards for automobiles, and sabotaging other environmentally beneficial programs, the current Administration is creating a human tinderbox. The match is the coronavirus. We must be the bucket brigade.

*Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States. Xiao Wu, Rachel C. Nethery, Benjamin M. Sabath, Danielle Braun, Francesca Dominici. medRxiv 2020.04.05.20054502; doi: hps:// doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054502