Time for the Virginia Governor to Protect People not Pipelines

MVP construction after a recent downpour

By Sharon Ponton, BREDL Stop the Pipelines Campaign Coordinator 

Perhaps it silly of me to share that I cried when I saw these photographs today. For five (5) long years I, among many others, have repeatedly presented evidence which supported our position that the proposed Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast Pipelines could not be built safely through our mountainous terrain. Within days of beginning construction on the MVP there was a landslide which resulted in 8 to 12 inches of mud blocking a road in Franklin County.

Since then there have been hundreds upon hundreds of incidents reported to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission  regarding sediment filled streams, banks of streams washing away, ponds filled with sediment, basements flooded, wells and springs ruined, farms destroyed requiring owners to sell their cattle and other animals. Virginia’s attorney general filed a lawsuit for over 300 violations last fall. WV fined MVP hundreds of thousands of dollars for violations. Permits for stream and wetland crossings have been vacated by the courts and yet VADEQ, the State Water Control Board, the Attorney General and our Governor allow construction to continue. The result of their inaction is depicted by the two photos I share taken by a friend in SWVA, Tina Badger.

This is not a tragedy. It is the ultimate proof former Governor Terry McAuliffe and current Governor Ralph Northam, Lt.Governor Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring...Democrats each and every one...who claim to care about our environment and our natural resources, are nothing more than hacks for the fossil fuel industry. If they cared about our mountains, our water, our communities and the people who live in them, they would stop these communities from being destroyed. Instead they allow companies like Dominion, Duke, the Southern Company, and EQT to damage and destroy the properties of unwilling landowners so the shareholders can make money off the backs of those same unwilling landowners.

There have been 5 pipeline explosions in the Appalachian region since 2018. Each of them has been caused by landslides. Yet our elected officials and bureaucrats stand idly by and let these 42” high-pressure fracked gas lines continue on a path to completion through landslide prone soils on treacherously steep mountain slopes. No matter the destruction they cause to our environment, to our communities, and to the landowners who are forced to host them.

MVP construction after a recent downpour

I have tried at each hearing, meeting, discussion and protest to be respectful of others and their opinions. While these photos make me cry, they also re-invigorate my determination to shut these pipelines down. People matter. Their water matters. Their livelihoods matter. Their homes matter. All of these things matter more than these greedy companies making another dollar on somebody else’s back. It’s past time for our elected officials to stand up and protect the people.