The Peoples Climate March is Red, White, and Blue

Guest post by Rick Shingles, member of Preserve Giles County
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On April 29, I plan to travel more than 500 miles to Washington D.C. for the Peoples’ Climate Mobilization. For me, marching is about more than politics, more than ideology.
For me, the issue is deeply personal.
The fossil fuel industry threatens my community in southwest Virginia. The proposed fracked-gas Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is routed to bisect Newport which sits in the middle of the active Giles County seismic zone in the midst of the Appalachian fold belt. This 42-inch diameter pipeline would carve through steep ridges and karst valleys in some of the most pristine natural habitat and biodiversity in the world.
Our natural heritage, endangered species, aquifers (the primary source of our farm and residential water), safety from catastrophe like the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion, peace of mind, property values and property rights are all at risk.
Our town is just one casualty of a vast fracked-gas pipelines infrastructure either built or planned. There are 9,000 miles of new oil and gas pipelines proposed in the U.S. with 19 (including the MVP and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline) in Appalachia alone. And tens of thousands of homes and businesses are being sacrificed to supply the product these pipelines transport: fracked methane, an even more lethal greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Multiple perils accompany every stage of hydraulic fracturing: the toxic mix of chemicals used to induce it, the dispersal and storage of waste water which can poison drinkable water and soils, seismic activity, methane leaks at every stage of production and distribution, and the destruction of green economies.
A Roanoke Times editorial presents my county as a model for developing outdoor recreational economies. Yet our economy is imperiled by the MVP. The pipeline would cross tributaries of the New River (some multiple times). It would block access to Mountain Lake and the Cascades during the construction. And the Jefferson National Forest could become split by a 500-foot wide utility corridor.
All of this could upend fifteen years of collaboration by local businesses and county government to build a tourism economy that currently provides $26 million in annual business revenue, 16% of our sales tax, $90,000 in transient occupancy taxes and two percent of total tax revenue. That is a lot for a sparsely settled, rural county. We don’t want it trashed by an interstate pipeline ally.
Why should so many American communities be sacrifice zones to supply this fuel to other nations, a good number of which ban fracking?
That’s why I’m going to march in Washington.
I will support Americans in all communities that are being sacrificed to supply fracked gas.
And for what? For continued reliance on antiquated twentieth century energy sources that are increasingly unnecessary, less plentiful and more expensive than wind, solar, hydraulic, and tidal power?
I am going to fight for greater regulation of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that appears controlled by the very gas and oil industry it is supposed to regulate, approves any and all interstate pipeline applications, grants private companies eminent domain to take our land, and runs roughshod over state and local governments.
I am going for my children and grandchildren – to preserve a natural heritage threatened by our addiction to fossil fuels, to help stave off rising seas and coastal flooding and the fundamental alteration of inland climates that underlie many traditional industries (See Stephen Nash’s Virginia Climate Fever: How Global Warming will Transform Out Cities, Shorelines, and Forests). Climate disruption could well lead to unprecedented mass migrations and economic, social and political instability that could destabilize governments and exacerbate international conflicts.
The dire threats posed by climate disruption should not be partisan issues, red-states versus blue-states, or framed by ideologues of the left or the right.
I will journey to Washington understanding that each of us must look to ourselves first to protect our communities, preserve our natural heritage and safeguard our progeny. If we fail, I will not solely blame any particular individual or political party or politicians in general. Each citizen has the responsibility to reduce his or her own environmental footprint and to fulfill the obligation of democratic citizenship. We must act to hold our leaders accountable. We must take direct action.
I accept this responsibility.
One day, I hope to tell my grandchildren that I – with millions of others – met this singular challenge and became this nation’s greatest generation.

Rick Shingles is associate professor emeritus at Virginia Tech and coordinator of Preserve Giles County.

Federal Review of Atlantic Coast Pipeline Fails People and the Environment

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s flawed analysis of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline fails the public and the environment.
An analysis of environmental impacts for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline is completely inadequate and falls far short of legal requirements.  This is the overwhelming consensus of thousands of comments filed this week with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).  The agency had issued on December 30 a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the proposed 600-mile natural gas pipeline that would go from central West Virginia, through Virginia and terminate in southern North Carolina.  April 6 is the deadline for public comments.
“FERC’s inability to provide a sound analysis of this project is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act,” said Lewis Freeman, Chair and Executive Director of the Alleghany-Blue Ridge Alliance, a coalition of 51-organizations opposing the project. “What’s more, the Commission is poised to make a decision that will reverberate for decades based on inadequate information.”
The shortcomings of the DEIS are considerable because of its failure to:

  • Assess the true market demand for natural gas in the region of the proposed pipeline;
  • Take a hard look at the effects the proposed route planned through predominantly minority and low-income neighborhoods would have on communities;
  • Consider the devastation to mountaintops construction would have across steep, forested Appalachian ridges;
  • Provide adequate environmental information. The DEIS lacks sufficient information about the ACP and its potential environmental impacts on a wide variety of resources, including water resources, wetlands, cultural resources, threatened and endangered species and climate change implications; and
  • Identify, consider, and analyze all reasonable alternatives.

“The federal government is glossing over the massive impacts this 600-mile pipeline would have on neighboring communities and climate change,” said Alison Kelly, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Greenlighting this pipeline without a sufficient review of the damage it would cause is a disservice to the people who life in its path and treasure this part of Appalachia.”
Greg Buppert, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said: “FERC is only telling one side of the story, and that story fails to answer the critical threshold question – is this project even necessary?”  Buppert points out that recent energy demand forecasts have cast serious doubt on the need for the ACP.  Furthermore, two-thirds of new generating capacity being added in the United States is based on renewable sources, not natural gas. Building the ACP would be contrary to the future growth of the electric utility industry.
“ACP refused to do the necessary impact analysis, so we have had to hire engineers to find out what will actually happen,” said Ben Luckett, a senior attorney with Appalachian Mountain Advocates. “We’ve learned the pipeline would create millions of cubic yards of excess dirt and rock for which ACP has no disposal plan and will level many of our scenic ridgetops, much like a mountaintop removal coal mine. We fear the most likely resting place for all of that construction spoil will be in our rivers, lakes, and streams. It is truly a slap in the face to hear FERC dismiss these impacts as ‘insignificant’ or, worse yet, to see that they have failed to analyze them at all.”
“The Atlantic Coast Pipeline environmental review failed to adequately address the threats it poses to our communities and our environment. This dirty and dangerous pipeline creates concern for significant risks of adverse impacts due to the nature of the terrain that the line would cross. Based on multiple unresolved environmental issues and potential hazards, and the magnitude of this project, FERC must reject the application. The stakes are very high and the risks are far too great,” said Kirk Bowers, Virginia Chapter, Sierra Club.
Anne Havemann, Senior Counsel at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said: “The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would be a disaster for the climate. It will trigger a massive new wave of fracking, bringing climate pollution equivalent to 20 new coal-fired power plants. FERC’s own former chairman Norman Bay said that the agency should reconsider how it analyzes environmental impacts of pipelines like ACP, including analyzing lifecycle climate emissions. FERC should heed his advice and revise its analysis, or reject the pipeline.”
Peter Anderson, Virginia Program Manager for Appalachian Voices, noted: “A couple of months ago, the former Chairman of FERC raised significant doubts that the agency adequately analyzes pipeline need and climate impacts. This draft environmental impact statement is no different. FERC should rescind this DEIS and start over, this time with final route proposals, completed surveys, climate analysis that accounts for the entire life cycle, and a critical analysis of market demand and alternatives.”
“We know that projects like these are invariably placed near communities of low-income, people of color, or the elderly. In usual fashion, the ACP places a heavy burden on the poor and elderly, perhaps by design. These folks may not have the energy, stamina, and resources to fight, and that’s what these companies are banking on. This is an example of outside interests that plan to use our resources and toxify our land for their own benefit. It’s an old story that continues to play out the same way, despite the best efforts of local people to change our energy landscape,” said April Pierson-Keating Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance, Upshur County, WV.

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Contacts:
Lewis Freeman, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, 703-298-8107, lewfreeman@gmail.com
Greg Buppert, Southern Environmental Law Center, 434-977-4090, gbuppert@selcva.org
Ben Luckett, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, 404-645-0125, bluckett@appalmad.org