Pamplico Stop The Pipeline Defense Committee

 

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

Summer 2020 Issue: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/Summer2020.pdf

Index to this and other issues: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/index.htm

A community focused on keeping their inheritance clean and free from contamination

By Charles Utley, Associate Director

A new community group located in Florence, South Carolina, spearheaded by Rev. Reatha Jefferson and Ms. Kathy Andrews, made contact with us through our long time BREDL friends and Board Vice Presidents Elizabeth and Daisy O’Nan. Lou and I have been working with this community to help them to maintain the integrity of their property from being exposed to additional gas pipelines from Dominion Energy.

Dominion Energy, a private company, wants to build a huge dangerous gas pipeline through heirs property, the land of former slaves and working class residents. It is rural property bordering the Great Pee Dee River in Florence County, Pamplico, South Carolina.

The proposed 14.5-mile-long (23-kilometer-long) gas line is small in comparison to the Dominion Atlantic Coast Pipeline that was successfully stopped by BREDL and others who joined the campaign.

However, the same problems are prevalent in the Pamplico Community Campaign. There is still the concern of fully understanding the procedures of Heirs Property that must be considered and addressed by all family members. Community organizing is always important to make sure that all voices are heard, and all concerns are addressed. Therefore, we have addressed the United States Army Corps of Engineers South Carolina office through a supported letter to Mr. Austin Dartez, Project Manager, and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control Water Quality Certification and Wetlands Section for the River Neck to Kingsburg project. The support letter was done through the South Carolina Environmental Law Project. We also submitted a letter to Mayor Stephen J. Wukela, City Council of Florence City, and we continue to seek ways of speaking with the Florence County Council.

We have received support from other organizations such as Shelley Robbins, energy and state policy director of Upstate Forever, an environmental watchdog group focused on preserving land in South Carolina, who “wonders if the proposed pipeline is being designed with a relatively large diameter so that it could connect to a natural-gas power plant in addition to supplying customers with electricity. Such a plant would have a far bigger footprint in the community than the proposed line.”

Rev. Jefferson and Ms. Andrews are concerned about the Dominion record which includes the explosion that took place in Ohio and pollution of the Pee Dee River. This community is like many other minority communities across the Southeast who are standing to protect what was given to them as their inheritance to be passed on to the next generation.

“My goal is to let everyone in my family know how dangerous this pipeline will be and what effect it will have on the health of our family from now on” wrote Rev. Jefferson.

As BREDL continues to work with the Pamplico Stop the Pipeline Defense Community it is our goal to make every effort to support those same desires, and that Equal Justice will prevail.

#pipelines #environmentaljustice #DominionEnergy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proposed River Neck to Kingsburg Natural Gas Pipeline    Source: Dominion Energy Project Map