Lawsuit: Contaminated soil was Big Run-bound

Sunday April 5, 2020

(ASHLAND, KY) A 2019 car crash lawsuit has revealed a conspiracy to illegally dump contaminated soil at the Big Run Landfill, according to a recently amended complaint. The lawsuit charges three environmental clean-up companies with civil conspiracy, fraud negligence. Two roadside assistance companies were also charged in the suit. The complaint alleges Clean Harbors Environmental Services Inc. and Valicor Environmental Services, LLC knowingly sent a truckload of contaminated soil from Poca, West Virginia, to the landfill located in Ashland on May 15, 2019. After the truck experienced a blowout on I-64 near Milton, West Virginia, it experienced brake failure, the complaint states. Once it made its way to exit 181 in Kentucky, the complaint states its brakes failed again and slammed into a vehicle with two teenagers inside. The amended complaint sheds light on why the 42,000-pound rollback truck continued its trek after already experiencing brake failure about 20 miles from where it left.

Clean Harbors was contracted with disposing soil contaminated by the Mountain Valley Pipeline project in Braxton County, West Virginia, a more than two-hour drive from Boyd County, the complaint states. The soil was dirtied with fracking fluid, which can include lead, radium, uranium, methanol, mercury, hydrocholoric acid and formaldehyde, according to the suit. Due to the nature of the waste, it needed to be tested prior to being dumped at any landfill, the suit further elaborates.

Read the full The Daily Independent (Ashland, KY) news report

Letter: Concerned MVP construction could expand coronavirus

Monday Mar. 30, 2020

I am writing to express my concern with the potential for Mountain Valley Pipeline’s construction to enable COVID-19 coronavirus expansion. More than 250 people have died as the virus expands rapidly. Confirmed cases in the U.S. doubled over two days to more than 16,000 on March 20. Yet I take some solace in knowing that our area so far has few confirmed cases and that so many here are taking precautions by staying at home, social distancing, limiting travel, etc. But spring is here and I am concerned that Mountain Valley Pipeline may resume construction in a way that accelerates virus expansion. In recent years, MVP has brought hundreds of workers from other parts of the country into this area. We know that people who contract the virus are often contagious prior to symptoms and therefore unaware of their role in spreading it; that many US areas are experiencing virus outbreaks; and that travel by infected persons is a means by which the virus expands. As I write, more than one-third of the nation’s cases with known causes are due to travel; among those are two close to the Roanoke area, one in Mercer County, West Va. and another in the West Piedmont Health District. Also as I write, nearly 1/4 of the nation’s population is under state-level restrictions for even local travel (restricted except for essentials such as grocery shopping). The president has declared a national emergency and Governor Northam has declared a statewide emergency in response to COVID-19’s rapid expansion.

Read the full Roanoke Times letter-to-the-editor

Federal reviews delay Mountain Valley Pipeline yet again

Friday Mar. 27, 2020

A winter hiatus in construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline will last well into the spring. The latest delay came this week, with word that two federal agencies will take another month to review one of several approvals — set aside by legal challenges from environmental groups — that must be restored before work can ramp up on the highly disputed natural gas pipeline. Thursday had been the deadline for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to finish their reconsideration of the project’s impact on endangered or threatened species of fish and bats. But in a letter Wednesday to FERC, the Fish and Wildlife Service said the agencies and Mountain Valley had agreed to take another 32 days, pushing the completion date to April 27.

Read the full Roanoke Times new report

Bowers, Christopulos and Smusz: COVID-19 and an army of pipeline workers don’t mix

Wednesday Mar. 25, 2020

Kirk Bowers, from Charlottesville, is pipelines campaign adviser for the Sierra Club Virginia chapter. Diana Christopulos is the retired owner of an international management consulting business. She lives in Salem. Tina Smusz is retired from 27 years of medical practice in Emergency Medicine and Palliative Care. She lives in Catawba.

We all have grave concerns about COVID-19. Restaurants, public facilities and churches have closed. Everyone is asked to stay home and gather in groups smaller than ten. But out-of-state natural gas corporations either don’t pay attention to current news, or maybe they just don’t care about the consequences of their actions. Mountain Valley Pipeline’s owners are preparing to unleash thousands of pipeline workers in six Virginia counties (Giles, Craig, Montgomery, Roanoke, Franklin and Pittsylvania), most of them non-local. Each of these workers is a potential virus carrier. While the nation is shutting down public and private events and facilities, MVP developer EQT told investors in February that “we are planning to get back to construction at the end of April. . . So construction will start ramping up.” They are pushing hard to complete construction in 2020 and have announced no significant changes.

Read the full Roanoke Times commentary

DEQ notes problems with erosion control during lull in work on Mountain Valley Pipeline

Tuesday Mar. 10, 2020

At a time when building the Mountain Valley Pipeline was focused almost entirely on controlling erosion, muddy runoff continued to flow from dormant construction sites. In a letter last month to a conservation group that first raised the issue, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Director David Paylor said the infractions would be forwarded to the state attorney general’s office, which has the authority to seek tough financial penalties. DEQ is “committed to aggressively and effectively enforcing and maintaining compliance of the Mountain Valley Pipeline construction,” Paylor wrote in a Feb. 13 letter to David Sligh, conservation director of Wild Virginia. Sligh made the letters public this week. Sligh had asked the week before about DEQ inspections that showed violations of erosion and sediment control regulations from Sept. 19 through Dec. 20, 2019 — when construction of the controversial natural gas pipeline was stalled by legal action, leaving workers to concentrate largely on efforts to curb erosion. The violations were especially troubling, Sligh wrote, because they began so shortly after Sept. 18 — the last day covered by a consent decree in which Mountain Valley agreed to pay Virginia $2.15 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged similar problems in the past.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Editorial: What the Constitution Pipeline says about Virginia’s pipelines

Tuesday Mar. 10, 2020

While everyone else has been preoccupied by primaries, purges and pandemics (or at least the threat thereof), there’s been some news involving another “p” word: Pipelines. The proposed Constitution Pipeline has been cancelled. This pipeline wasn’t going to be near us — it would have run from Pennsylvania to New York, where other connections would have sent the gas onto New England (or some believe Canada). However, the lessons learned from the Constitution Pipeline hit very close to home —but not close enough for some pipeline opponents.

Read the full Roanoke Times editorial

Letter: Pipeline bust or BOOM?

Wednesday Mar. 4, 2020

Mountain Valley Pipeline expects to reap huge profit transporting gas from the Marcellus shale fracking boom. Despite numerous lawsuits, million-dollar fines for environmental damage and falling demand for gas, MVP expects completion in 2020. Although parent company EQT falters near bankruptcy, they forge ahead with this boom or bust proposition. One critical part has been left out of most pipeline conversations. We know that, despite stealing land via eminent domain and destroying environmentally sensitive areas, MVP can indeed build a pipeline. But can they actually operate it safely?

The 303-mile pipeline will consist of over 30,000 sections of 42-inch diameter steel pipe. No pipeline this huge has ever crossed such inhospitable terrain. Each piece must be welded perfectly to the next as it tunnels under rivers and streams, traversing unstable karst terrain and incredibly steep slopes with precarious slip soils. One pinhole leak and a massive explosion is imminent. “Pipelines are safe” is MVP’s typical refrain. But a massive high-pressure gas pipeline burrowing across the rugged Appalachians?

Read the full Roanoke Times letter-to-the-editor

Pristine Waters At Bottom Creek Gorge

Tuesday February 25, 2020

Tucked away in Montgomery County, Va., is a wonderful natural treasure called Bottom Creek Gorge Preserve. In addition to hiking trails, this place is home to the globally rare chestnut lip fern, old growth hemlock forest and Bent Mountain Falls, the second highest waterfall in the state. The falls empty into Bottom Creek, a Tier III waterway. Tier III waters are defined by Virginia as exceptional bodies of water that meet strict criteria. Protection of these creeks and rivers is crucial. Given the designation of Bottom Creek, it might be surprising to learn that the 42-inch fracked-gas Mountain Valley Pipeline threatens the pristine waters of the Bent Mountain community surrounding the preserve…

…While the Mountain Valley Pipeline may not cross this preserve directly, MVP has repeatedly allowed excess sedimentation in nearby waterways, such as the Roanoke River and Little Teel Creek. Instead, the waters and lands surrounding areas such as the preserve should be cherished and protected for future generations to enjoy.

Read the full Appalachian Voices article

Mountain Valley weighs options should its crossing of the Appalachian Trail be blocked

Monday Feb. 24, 2020

When a federal appeals court ruled that a natural gas pipeline cannot cross under the Appalachian Trail, it erected a “2,192-mile-long barrier” that blocks service to much of the East Coast, lawyers for Mountain Valley Pipeline say in court papers. But that barrier may not be as high for Mountain Valley as it would be for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an earlier ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. For Atlantic Coast, a Dominion Energy-led venture that plans to build a pipeline across Central Virginia, the 4th Circuit’s ruling could doom the project. Last year, the appeals court rejected a permit from U.S. Forest Service that allowed the pipe to burrow under the Appalachian Trail in the George Washington National Forest, near the Wintergreen resort. Because the land in question was administered by the National Park Service, the 4th Circuit held, the Forest Service lacked authority to issue the permit. Environmental groups who brought the lawsuit say the unneeded pipeline would damage the Appalachian Trail, a scenic footpath that runs from Georgia to Maine.

Read full Roanoke Times news report

Pipeline opponents, trail advocates travel to Washington for Supreme Court hearing

Monday Feb. 24, 2020

WASHINGTON (WDBJ7)– Maury Johnson got in line at 6:30 Sunday evening, prepared for a cold night on the sidewalk outside the Supreme Court. He was there as a landowner whose property lies in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and as a defender of the Appalachian Trail. “My involvement with the Appalachian Trail probably started 45 years ago as a teenager,” Johnson told WDBJ7 in a telephone interview. “And this case has huge ramifications for the trail regardless of what the ruling is.” Johnson was one of the pipeline opponents and Appalachian Trail advocates from our region, who traveled to Washington to attend the Supreme Court hearing. He was the first in line.

“The big question is: If you want to cross the Appalachian Trail on federal land, can the Forest Service give you a permit to do that, or do you require an act of Congress.” explained Diana Christopulos, a pipeline opponent and Appalachian Trail advocate. The case before the Supreme Court deals specifically with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but it has implications for the Mountain Valley Pipeline as well, because both projects would cross the Appalachian Trail.

Read full WDBJ news report

Supreme Court Seems Ready to Back Atlantic Coast Pipeline Permit

Monday Feb. 24, 2020

A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices seemed supportive of a crucial permit for Dominion Energy Inc.’s planned $8 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, suggesting the Forest Service acted lawfully by clearing the natural-gas line to cross under the Appalachian Trail. In an hour-long argument in Washington Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts said the position taken by environmental groups opposed to the pipeline would “erect an impermeable barrier” along the 2,200-mile (3540-kilometer) trail, separating consumers on the eastern seaboard from inland energy resources. A ruling in Dominion’s favor would eliminate the biggest obstacle to the 600-mile pipeline, which would carry as much as 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the Marcellus shale basin in West Virginia to customers in North Carolina and Virginia. Without the permit, “the whole enterprise is done,” Justice Department lawyer Anthony Yang told the court Monday. President Donald Trump’s administration is backing Dominion, challenging a federal appeals court ruling that tossed out the permit.

Dominion, which is developing the pipeline with Duke Energy Corp., says it expects to begin construction by mid-year and complete it by the end of 2021. The company is still facing a pending administrative review of other environmental issues. The case will also affect EQM Midstream Partners LP’s Mountain Valley gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia. Mountain Valley told the Supreme Court in December that the appeals court ruling forced a halt to its project, which is 90% complete at a cost of more than $4.3 billion.

Read the full Bloomberg news report

Pipeline protester charged with 3 assaults of MVP workers

Friday Feb. 21, 2020

A protester was arrested this week on three charges of assaulting workers for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. As part of a covert operation Tuesday, Virginia State Police went to the site of a tree-sit blockade in Montgomery County, where they arrested Emma Howell, 22, on three outstanding charges, according to spokeswoman Corinne Geller. Two of the charges alleged assaults that happened last year; the third involved an encounter Feb. 14.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Hurst: Virginia not doing enough on pipelines

Monday Feb. 17, 2020

Chris Hurst represents Giles County, Radford and parts of Montgomery and Pulaski counties in the House of Delegates. He is a Democrat.

Sediment steadily encroaching onto private property. Road closures and traffic jams. Man-made erosion of the lush Appalachian Mountains. This has become the new normal for the residents of my district and far too many others who live in Southwest Virginia. The unfortunate truth is that this is what so many of us warned about when the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project filed for its construction permit in 2015. Now, almost five years later, following dubious arguments and deceitful reassurances from big energy and stakeholders of the MVP, the commonwealth’s environment and its citizens are more at risk to the consequences of this project than ever before. In 2018, the MVP racked up more than 300 permit violations for carelessly violating Virginia’s water quality standards, failing to repair broken equipment, allowing man-made erosion to occur, poor stormwater management, and more. These violations averaged more than one per day during construction and were unquestionably significant. The commonwealth clearly understands the crisis that these violations bring, as made evident by the Office of the Attorney General’s decision to sue the MVP alongside the Department of Environmental Quality over the high number of violations in late 2018. While I’m proud of the work the Attorney General has done to hold the Mountain Valley Pipeline accountable, Virginia is not doing nearly enough to defend our environment from the threats we face.

Read the full Roanoke Times commentary

Mountain Valley Pipeline extension clears environmental review by FERC

Friday Feb. 14, 2020

Plans to extend the Mountain Valley Pipeline 75 miles into North Carolina moved forward Friday, even as the initial project remains mired in legal and regulatory challenges. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that while there would be some environmental damage caused by building the so-called MVP Southgate, it could be minimized to “less than significant levels.” An environmental impact statement released by FERC is a major step forward for the pipeline, which would originate at Mountain Valley’s terminus in Chatham, head southwest through Pittsylvania County and cross into North Carolina, extending to Alamance County near Burlington.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Offset for pipeline damage to more than double size of Read Mountain Preserve

Tuesday Feb. 11, 2020

The Roanoke County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to accept $650,000 for the purchase of 304 acres that will more than double the size of the Read Mountain Preserve. The purchase includes Buzzards Rock, the preserve’s main attraction, which previously has been accessible by permission from the landowner. Money for the purchase came from the latest disbursement of a fund established last year, when Mountain Valley Pipeline agreed to pay the state $27.5 million to compensate for the forest fragmentation and water pollution that was expected from clearing land and digging trenches for the massive buried natural gas pipeline project. Virginia then passed the company’s payments on to four conservation groups. The largest share, $15 million, went to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, which awarded $3.9 million in its second round of grants.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Environmental problems continue with Mountain Valley Pipeline, group says

Friday Feb. 7, 2020

Problems with erosion and sedimentation along the construction zone of the Mountain Valley Pipeline have continued, despite a winter slowdown in the work. Inspections by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality found repeated violations from Sept. 19 through Dec. 20, 2019, according to an analysis by Wild Virginia, one of the environmental groups opposed to the natural gas pipeline being built through Southwest Virginia. The group’s conservation director, David Sligh, asked in a letter emailed Thursday to DEQ what enforcement actions have been taken, in light of a court order that allows for tougher monitoring and penalties for any repeat violations after Sept. 18. DEQ director of communications Greg Bilyeu did not address that question directly in an email to The Roanoke Times late Friday, instead explaining in general terms how the agency requires corrective action to address problems found during inspections.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Christopulos & Bowers: What you should know about the Roanoke Gas price increase: an open letter to customers and company shareholders

Monday Feb. 3, 2020

Diana Christopulos is a retired owner of an international management consulting business. She lives in Salem. Kirk Bowers is a retired engineer. He lives in Charlottesville.

Dear Roanoke Gas customers and shareholders in RGC Resources:

RGC statement: the SCC “affirmed the Company’s need for connections to the MVP and plans to acquire firm capacity from the MVP.”

SCC ruling: “the cost or prudence of the purchase of firm pipeline capacity [in MVP] is not an issue in this proceeding,” meaning those questions will arise if and when Roanoke Gas tries to charge customers for gas from MVP. The SCC did not allow Roanoke Gas to charge its customers for construction of gate stations in Montgomery and Franklin counties until MVP is in service.

RGC statement: the SCC ruling reduces the average customer’s “monthly bill approximately 8% or $3.25 from the rates implemented January 1, 2019.”

Impacts to Roanoke Gas customers: it is a “reduction” only in the sense that we have all been overcharged since January 1, 2019, even though the company never offered any explanation on our bills. We are all getting REFUNDS for the overcharge.

Completion of the MVP remains questionable. Construction is shut down after the loss of three sets of federal permits. The project is now at least two years behind schedule, with costs ballooning to between $5.0 to $5.5 billion dollars. Industry expert Thomas Hadwin has noted in The Roanoke Times that the high cost of MVP construction means its cost to consumers could be 500-800 percent higher than gas from the existing East Tennessee and Columbia pipelines. Customers are at risk of huge price increases if MVP is completed and the SCC approves future rate increases.

Several things that RGC did not say at all…

Read the full Roanoke Times commentary

Charge dismissed against Mountain Valley Pipeline opponent

Thursday Jan. 30, 2020

A misdemeanor charge that an opponent obstructed construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Montgomery County was dismissed Thursday. General District Judge Gino Williams ruled that pipeline officials brought the wrong charge against Phillip Flagg during a July 13 encounter in which Flagg secured himself to a concrete structure in the pipeline’s right of way, blocking work for several hours. Flagg was charged with obstructing the free passage of others in a public place. But the easement on which the incident occurred was private property, according to defense attorney Jennifer French of Wytheville. French said she was prepared to make that argument after the prosecution presented evidence Thursday, but Williams dismissed the charge with no prompting.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

SCC approves Roanoke Gas rate increase in part; customers to get refunds

Monday Jan. 27, 2020

State regulators have approved a rate increase less than what Roanoke Gas Co. sought and implemented last year on an interim basis, leading to refunds of $30 to $40 for the average residential customer…

…During a yearlong regulatory review of the rate increase, Roanoke Gas’ involvement in the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline took a high profile. Opponents argued that there was no need for the company to purchase gas from the 303-mile pipeline, and that the investment of a sister company, RGC Midstream, as a 1% partner in the joint venture would lead to higher rates for customers. Roanoke Gas officials, however, said the pipeline was needed to meet demand — a position the SCC agreed with. The decision to build two gate stations, in Franklin and Montgomery counties, to connect with the pipeline “was reasonable and prudent in order to provide additional capacity to meet Roanoke’s public service obligations,” the commission said in its 24-page decision…

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Seventy-six-year-old pipeline protester found guilty of trespassing, told to stay off work sites

Monday Jan. 13, 2020

CHRISTIANSBURG — A 76-year-old pipeline protester who chained herself to a crane last fall at a Montgomery County work site resolved her charges with a plea agreement Monday and said she has no regrets. “Why did I do it? Because pipelines are poisoning our Mother Earth and I can’t sit around and do nothing while this was happening,” Glenna Benjamin of Durham, North Carolina, said after a hearing in Montgomery County General District Court. Benjamin faced five misdemeanor charges from a Sept. 27 incident near Elliston, where protests against the Mountain Valley Pipeline have been continuous for more than a year. Benjamin attached herself to construction equipment, locking down her arm inside a pipe marked with the word “Resist.”

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

4th Circuit vacates state air permit for Buckingham pipeline compressor station

Tuesday Jan. 7, 2020

A federal appeals court dealt another blow to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline on Tuesday with a ruling that vacates a state air pollution control permit for a natural gas compressor station in Buckingham County for failing to consider the disproportionate health effects on the surrounding, predominantly African American community of Union Hill. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the State Air Pollution Control Board had “failed to grapple with the likelihood that those living closest to the compression station … will be affected more than those living in other parts of the county.” The 47-page ruling, written by Judge Stephanie Thacker of West Virginia, concluded that the board improperly relied on federal and state air quality standards without deciding whether the compressor station represented an environmental injustice to Union Hill residents, some of whom are descendants of slaves who founded the community after the Civil War.

Read the full Richmond Times-Dispatch news report

Virginia Landowners file constitutional case against FERC & Mountain Valley Pipeline

Monday Jan. 6, 2020

Word is the Mountain Valley Natural Gas Pipeline is that the project is nearly complete, but construction remains on hold for the winter and several environmental permits are still in limbo. Last week, landowners in the pipeline’s path filed a lawsuit against the company and the Federal Energy Regulatory commission, challenging the constitutionality of a practice known as ‘eminent domain.’ The lawsuit calls into question what the plaintiffs call, eminent domain for private gain, when private companies are granted the right to take private property for public use. The law requires “just” compensation to be given to the original owner.

Read or listen to the full Radio IQ / WVTF news report

Letter: Nonrenewable energy crossing the (pipe) line

Monday Jan. 6, 2020

Traveling through 469 miles of Virginia and North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) is one of the most historical environmental landmarks of the Appalachian region. Recent reports from the National Parks Service have shown that the BRP supports 16,000 jobs for local parkway employees. In 2018, the BRP had over 14.7 million visitors who spent $1.3 billion on the parkway alone and spent $20.2 billion in surrounding counties supporting 329,000 jobs. According to the 2018 National Parks Service Visitor Effects Spending Report, visitation of the parkway has been declining since approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in June of 2018. From 2017 to 2018 alone visitation dropped by 1.4 million and spending dropped $100 million leading to job and salary cuts in the region. Although some believe that visitation will increase upon completion of the pipeline, local consensus attributes the decline to MVP construction. Gambling away a definite source of income for a short-term infrastructure with questionable economic benefits is a mistake. Since the MVP was announced in 2014, many locals and visitors to the region have resisted its construction in order to protect the mountains, waterways and jobs in Appalachia. At the federal level, Virginian legislators Senator Kaine, Senator Warner and Representative Griffith have been working to gain support from other members of Congress to revise Federal Energy Regulatory Commission standards for future pipeline approval. The proposed Pipeline Fairness and Transparency Act is a start but must be made much stronger to prevent unnecessary destruction of natural landmarks for fossil fuel infrastructure that is outdated before it even goes into service.

Read the full Roanoke Times letter-to-the-editor

Latest lawsuit against Mountain Valley Pipeline contests the taking of private land

Friday Jan. 3, 2020

Work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline might be stalled for the winter, but that has not stopped the legal challenges against the embattled project. In the latest attack, brought Thursday, three couples who had their land taken for the natural gas pipeline are contesting the seizures, arguing that as a private company, Mountain Valley should not have been allowed to use the laws of eminent domain. The lawsuit — filed on behalf of Cletus and Beverly Bohon of Montgomery County, Wendell and Mary Flora of Franklin County and Robert and Aimee Hamm of Roanoke County — seeks a remedy that would extend far beyond the pipeline’s 303-mile route. Because Congress improperly delegated legislative power to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which in turn gave a private company the authority to invoke eminent domain, all pipeline approvals that led to land being taken under the process should be invalidated, the lawsuit claims.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Letter: Colossal blunder

Thursday Jan. 2, 2020

Even as winter halts construction, the Mountain Valley Pipeline disaster continues. It’s like a sleeping fire-breathing dragon that has torn its way across the landscape, terrorizing the inhabitants and ripping landowners lives apart. Even in slumber it remains incredibly dangerous. We must kill it before it reawakens.

This beast, born out of pure greed, should never have been conceived. Fundamentally flawed from the start, it’s been nurtured by FERC, the corrupt agency that stamps YES on every pipeline they review. This monster project was encouraged by myopic Virginia governors, politicians and civic leaders blinded by promises of bounty. Inexplicably, government agencies, established to protect our natural resources, ignored their own rules and assisted the birth of this destructive creature. Luckily, the justice system is forcing a reassessment of these erroneous decisions.

Read the full Roanoke Times letter-to-the-editor

Editorial: 20 questions for 2020

Wednesday Jan. 1, 2020

Happy New Year. What kind of year will this be? Check back in another 365 days and we’ll tell you. Meanwhile, here are 20 questions, the answers to which will help shape what kind of year 2020 will be:

12. Will either or both of the proposed natural gas pipelines get built? Right now, both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline have been slowed by court action. Speaking of court action . . .

13. How will the U.S. Supreme Court rule on the ACP? In February, the court will hear a case on whether the Appalachian Trail can block pipelines from burrowing under it. This specific case concerns only the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but the ruling — however it goes — will have much larger ramifications.

Read the full Roanoke Times editorial

Editorial: 19 questions, and 19 answers, for 2019

Tuesday Dec. 31, 2019

When the year began, we posed 19 questions, the answers to which we thought would help shape what kind of year 2019 would be. Here’s how things turned out…

10. Will we see any big changes in other local elections? Umm, not really, unless you count two anti-pipeline activists winning seats on their Soil and Water Conservation Boards in Roanoke and Montgomery County.

11. Will either or both of the proposed natural gas pipelines get built? Not yet. The Mountain Valley Pipeline says it’s about 85% complete but construction has been halted by court rulings. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is likewise held up in the courts, including one case that’s before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read the full Roanoke Times editorial

Natural gas development is speeding up in Virginia. Legislators will have to square that with state climate goals.

Monday Dec. 30, 2019

This September, Gov. Ralph Northam took the stage at the inaugural Virginia Clean Energy Summit to announce he was committing the state to a carbon-free grid by 2050. “I always say that I want Virginia to be a welcoming place, with our lights on and our doors open,” he said. “Well, I also want those lights to be powered by clean energy.” But as the governor received a standing ovation, elsewhere in the commonwealth work was underway to massively expand infrastructure supporting a very different — and decidedly not carbon-free — type of energy: natural gas.

The past year has seen a flow of investments in natural gas in Virginia, from ongoing work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline and continued efforts to construct the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to plans by state utilities and private investors to build up to 12 new natural gas plants. Now, as the General Assembly prepares to convene this January under new Democratic leadership, lawmakers are struggling to chart a course for Virginia’s energy policy in a state split between carbon-free goals and intensive natural gas investment.

Read the full Virginia Mercury news report

Looking back at some of 2019’s local news stories and asking ‘What Happened To?’

Monday Dec. 30, 2019

As 2019 concludes, the news staff looks back to some of the stories we’ve covered in the past year and explains “What Happened To? … ”

Mountain Valley Pipeline construction stalls

Then: In July, Anne and Steve Bernard’s view of the Mountain Valley Pipeline was discomforting: Part of the pipe was floating in water that filled a trench dug by construction workers about 150 feet from their home and art studio in Franklin County. The 120-foot section of steel pipe, which tilted upwards from where it was supposed to be buried, had been that way for a year — long enough for the Bernards to worry that the spot where it was welded to the underground part of the pipeline might be weakened as the water level rose and fell. Crews were in the process of burying the pipe in July 2018 when a series of revoked and suspended permits, struck down by a federal appeals court for environmental reasons, stopped their work in mid-process. For more than a year, the Bernards’ fears of an explosion or other problem with the natural gas pipeline remained as suspended as the piece of pipe on their land.

Now: Crews returned to the site in September, spent about a day pumping out ground water that had filled the 10-foot deep trench, and covered the section of pipe with dirt. But then it was clear that Mountain Valley would not have its permits restored until the following year, and the company was stabilizing unfinished work sites before winter set in. Before construction can be completed, the federal government must reissue three sets of key permits: for the 303-mile pipeline to pass through the Jefferson National Forest, to cross more than 1,000 streams and wetlands, and to be built in a way the protects endangered species of bats and fish. If that happens, crews will return to the Bernards’ property to complete a nearby stream crossing. “We can’t walk out of the door without being reminded of it,” Anne Bernard said of the spot of bare earth where the pipe once protruded. “We can’t forget about it.”

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Editorial: How will we remember 2019?

Sunday Dec. 29, 2019

When future historians — or even just ordinary people — look back on 2019, they’ll have a lot to remember…

…This was the year carbon in the atmosphere hit 415 parts per million — the highest level in human history — and a teenage climate activist from Sweden commanded the world stage…

…This was the year that saw construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline both continue and get halted by various court rulings.

Read the full Roanoke Times editorial

Photos: Pipeline protesters continue tree-sitting on Christmas Day

Thursday Dec. 26, 2019

An unidentified pipeline protester swings in a hammock while reading Wednesday at the camp off Yellow Finch Lane.

View the full Roanoke Times photo-essay

Pipeline protesters push past Christmas

Wednesday Dec. 25, 2019

ELLISTON — Tree-sitters protesting the Mountain Valley Pipeline weren’t especially concerned that Santa Claus didn’t show up with presents Wednesday. The group of about 12 protesters — only two of which are stationed high above the ground in a white pine and a chestnut oak — mingled around the makeshift campsite off Yellow Finch Lane in Elliston, treating the day as if it was any other. Some protesters and supporters — most declining to be named or giving pseudonyms — said they’ve been there on and off since early September 2018, making it the longest active blockade of a natural gas pipeline on the East Coast, according to Appalachians Against Pipelines.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Wilson: Forest Service wants to reduce public input

Wednesday Dec. 18, 2019

William Wilson is an attorney in Covington and president of the Jackson River Preservation Association.

The Jackson River Preservation Association (JRPA), is a small, non-profit corporation, located in the Alleghany Highlands of Virginia, dedicated to the protection and preservation of the Jackson River. The Jackson River flows through Highland, Bath and Alleghany Counties, all in Virginia, and joins with the Cowpasture River to form the James River. I am honored to be the president of the JRPA and have been since its inception in 2016. Almost from the beginning, our organization has been fighting to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) proposed to run from Wetzel County, West Virginia, down to the Virginia coast and on into North Carolina and South Carolina. The pipeline is supposed to be 42 inches in diameter and, if built, will run up and down some of the steepest mountains in Virginia. That cannot be done, in our opinion, without huge and permanent environmental damage. I mention that to you because early on in the debate, the U.S.F.S. appeared to be protecting the public’s interest in the George Washington and Monongahela National Forest but when the word came down from the “Administration” that the ACP should be built, the U.S.F.S. did an about face and started making decisions that played into the hands of Dominion Energy, the project’s developer. The U.S.F.S. was not the only agency to roll over. So did the Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Perhaps you have kept up with the decisions of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals? If so, you know that permit after permit has been voided by the Court on the ground, mainly, that the permits were “arbitrary and capricious” and sometimes rushed through to completion. The same kind of thing has happened at the state agency level in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. It is a sorry mess, and, frankly, I am ashamed of our agencies which, supposedly, were designed to protect the public and its property…

…Now, in the alleged names of “economy” and “efficiency,” the U.S.F.S., by “rule” change, proposes to reduce the public’s participation in projects that affect the national forest. Why would they do that? Could it be because the Trump Administration wants to continue bulling the agencies as they have been doing with deregulation and Executive Orders? I think so, and the sad thing is that I am getting vibes that the U.S.F.S. personnel are going to be complicit in that effort. I hate to say that because I love this country but I have watched that “rollover” syndrome for almost four years regarding the ACP — and MVP.

Read the full Roanoke Times commentary

Dominion still sees U.S. Atlantic Coast natgas pipe online in 2022 despite Morgan Stanley’s doubts

Monday Dec. 16, 2019

(Reuters) – Dominion Energy Inc (D.N) said on Monday it was confident it will complete the proposed $7.3-$7.8 billion Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina by early 2022, in response to a prediction by investment bank Morgan Stanley that a court decision would likely scuttle the project…Dominion made its comments after Morgan Stanley said in a report that “Atlantic Coast will likely not be completed given the Fourth Circuit’s likely (in the bank’s view) rejection, for the third time, of a newly issued Biological Opinion and Incidental Take Statement that we expect to come by the first quarter of 2020.” In July, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) second Biological Opinion because the court found the agency’s decisions were arbitrary and would jeopardize the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee and other endangered species. Federal agencies use Biological Opinions when authorizing projects that could adversely affect threatened or endangered species or critical habitats, and issue take statements to limit the number of those species that could be harmed…

…Dominion suspended construction of the 600-mile (966-kilometer) project in December 2018 after the Fourth Circuit stayed the FWS’ second Biological Opinion. Dominion and its partners, Duke Energy Corp (DUK.N) and Southern Co (SO.N), are also working through a dispute over where the pipeline can cross the Appalachian Trail…

…The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the Appalachian Trail case, which is also important for the construction of EQM Midstream Partners LP’s (EQM.N) Mountain Valley gas pipe from West Virginia to Virginia.

Read the full Reuters report

Judge approves $2.15 million settlement of lawsuit against Mountain Valley Pipeline

Thursday Dec. 12, 2019

Mountain Valley Pipeline will pay $2.15 million for the environmental damage it has caused so far in building a natural gas pipeline through Southwest Virginia, while facing additional penalties for any new violations that may occur. Those were the conditions of a settlement, approved this week, of a lawsuit brought against the company by state regulators. Attorney General Mark Herring, who filed the case a year ago on behalf of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the State Water Control Board, called the financial penalty one of the toughest ever imposed by the state in such a case…

…Pipeline opponents called the agreement too lenient, saying that the $2.15 million fine amounts to just 0.038% of the project’s total cost of $5.5 billion. “The financial penalty is so small, in fact, that polluters will not see it as a deterrent to future crimes and offenses, but rather as a mere pittance, the cost of doing business in Virginia,” the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition said in a written statement.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Munley: Past time for water board to stop pipeline

Thursday Dec. 12, 2019

Cynthia Munley is an organizer of Preserve Salem.

Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is engineered, constructed and fatally-flawed because of its contractor’s gross underestimate of stormwater runoff. Mounting evidence of engineering failure started with a landslide on Cahas Mountain Road in May 2018. The State Water Control Board (SWCB) is the citizenry’s ultimate defense against schemes by government leaders under the influence of campaign contributions and an industry colluding with the predatory Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). In August 2018, the SWCB came one vote shy of revoking MVP’s 401 permit. In December 2018, it voted to reconsider, but after three months of silence, the board met in private for four hours with the Attorney General’s counsel. Without explanation, the board announced it “lacked authority to revoke” — abandoning its more accountable new direction along with science and mounting, documented violations.

Read the full Roanoke Times commentary

Early plans unveiled for proposed Brush Mountain trail network

Sunday Dec. 8, 2019

BLACKSBURG — Draft plans have been unveiled for a new network of natural trails on Brush Mountain. Project diagrams, viewable on Blacksburg’s town website, were put on display Thursday night during an information session at the Blacksburg Library. More than 100 people attended the event, which was hosted in part to field community questions about the recreational project. The network of dirt trails are set to be located on two properties totaling 552 acres located north of Meadowbrook Drive, close to Gateway and Heritage parks in northwest Blacksburg. The New River Land Trust purchased the Brush Mountain properties with the aid of a $1.2 million grant originating from payments generated from the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline to offset the surface impacts caused by the project’s construction.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Texas construction company no longer working on Mountain Valley Pipeline

Tuesday Dec. 3, 2019

A Texas corporation that has put down roots in Raleigh County is no longer working on a controversial natural gas pipeline in West Virginia, after the pipeline’s major stakeholder unexpectedly cancelled the Texas company’s contract last month. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a joint project of EQM Midstream Partners LP, Con Edison Transmissions Inc., NextEra US Gas Assets LLC, WGL Midstream and RGC Midstream. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in October halted construction of the 303-mile, interstate pipeline in October, pending the outcome of a series of court challenges launched by environmental groups. In the last week of November, EQM Midstream Partners LP cancelled a work contract for Trinity Energy Services of Argyle, Texas, Trinity spokesman Bob McKibbon verified Monday. “We’ve all been kind of in the dark with it, as far as not much detail,” McKibbon said Monday. “There’s nobody else talking to us about it.”

Read the full Beckley (WV) Register-Herald article

Despite setbacks, Mountain Valley Pipeline inches forward

Monday Dec. 2, 2019

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is three years behind schedule, $2 billion over budget and has lost four required permits it needs to continue construction. The 4^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stopped work on the pipeline to review a lawsuit over one of those permits, and another suit over environmental violations ended with MVP paying a $2.15 million civil penalty…

…Diana Christopulos, a member of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy President’s Leadership Council and president of the Blue Ridge Land Conservancy, questions the need for the MVP and has fought the pipeline for years. She admits the odds favor the MVP, but she doesn’t think its completion is inevitable. “The question becomes how long do they want to keep throwing this money around and how long do the investors want to keep loaning them money?” she says. “It is death by a thousand cuts. You never know when you’ve got to the thousandth one because they’re little.”

Read the full Virginia Business article

Editorial: Newspapers stories don’t just happen

Saturday Nov. 30, 2019

…Pipeline oversight. One of the major stories in our midst is the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline burrowing through the region. Suspicions have swirled around the pipeline project and others like it for years. In the spring, reporter Laurence Hammack confirmed one of those, namely that regulatory oversight equates to taps on the wrist. He found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — largely made up of former company officials — had issued just one fine to the natural gas pipeline company since 2005. This despite the surge in natural gas pipeline projects over that same span. That explained, in the minds of some pipeline foes, why MVP had not been issued a single “serious violation” despite problems largely oriented around erosion. A gravel parking lot washed out and caked a Lindside, West Virginia, church in mud. Sediment-laded water gushed into a Pittsylvania County stream. Elsewhere, there have been mudslides. But no serious violations. Hammack’s reporting reveals that such scenarios are not uncommon. None of these were stories produced by national news organizations. They weren’t produced by CNN or Fox or MSNBC or The Washington Post or the New York Times and they certainly weren’t produced by Facebook or Twitter, although they may have been shared there. They were produced by your neighbors who work for The Roanoke Times, by reporters who sit through government meetings while you’re at your kid’s soccer game, or study government documents while you’re going about your daily life…

Read the full Roanoke Times editorial

Pipeline opponents ask court to reject agreement between Virginia and MVP

Wednesday Nov. 27, 2019

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ7) A coalition of groups that oppose the Mountain Valley Pipeline are asking a court to reject an agreement between the pipeline company and the Virginia Attorney General’s Office. Wednesday was the deadline for public comment on the the agreement that was negotiated to settle alleged violations of environmental laws.

Members of the POWHR coalition said the agreement ignores almost a year of violations, lacks adequate safeguards and fails to mitigate the damage effectively. “What we would like to see is for the court to hear directly from impacted folks along the route and reject this agreement,” said POWHR Co-Chair Russell Chisholm,”because we don’t believe they have all of the information that should be considered. In its leniency, lack of transparency and lack of accountability, the Attorney General’s proposed agreement with MVP is little more than a ‘pay to pollute’ scheme,” said POWHR Co-Chair Roberta Bondurant, “which broadcasts to out-of-state extraction interests that the Commonwealth is open for business to anyone who can pre-pay their crimes.”

Read or view the full WDBJ7 news report

Public comments being taken on lawsuit against Mountain Valley Pipeline

Friday Nov. 22, 2019

Before a judge decides whether to approve a $2.15 million settlement of a lawsuit alleging environmental damage caused by building the Mountain Valley Pipeline, state regulators will consider public comments on the proposal. About 130 people had submitted input by midday Tuesday, according to Ann Regn, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The deadline for written comments is Wednesday.

DEQ and the State Water Control Board sued Mountain Valley last December, saying the company violated state regulations meant to limit erosion and sedimentation more than 300 times in building the largest natural gas pipeline ever to cross Southwest Virginia.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Bondurant and Leech: The ‘public need’ argument for the MVP grows weaker

Thursday Nov. 21, 2019

Roberta Bondurant is Co-chair of Protect Our Water Heritage Rights Coalition. She lives in Roanoke County.

Irene Leech is a member of Preserve Montgomery County. She lives in Montgomery County.

Public need is the core constitutional requirement for the taking of private property in eminent domain. The question of public need for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) has been questioned since private corporation EQT first proposed it in 2014. The volume of skepticism and public outrage regarding MVP has recently reached a record decibel with new evidence from the State Corporation Commission and EQT/MVP executive decision makers. Since 2014, economic experts and FERC Commissioners alike have emphasized that FERC failed to evaluate and MVP failed to establish true public “need” in support of FERC certification of natural gas pipeline projects. In February 2017, former FERC Enforcement Chief and Chair Norman Bay questioned the use of “precedent agreements” or shipping contracts, as proof of public need. Bay urged further consideration of additional factors such as assessment of present infrastructure, cost-benefit analysis, market competition and long term economic stability. He warned of the results of overbuild, including stranded assets and economic instability, where producer-shippers are allowed to drive infrastructure development. In June 2018 dissents on the MVP certificate rehearing appeals, Commissioners Richard Glick and Cheryl LaFleur repeated Bay’s concerns. Glick noted that MVP, a limited liability corporation, had relied solely on agreements with its own affiliates. La Fleur, a career banking and energy official, cited due process offenses by FERC for accepting precedent agreements alone while allowing MVP and affiliates to keep documents embodying those agreements hidden from the public.

The above concerns, as well as direct evidence from communities in the path of MVP, are now before the Commonwealth of Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC). An independent analyst, reviewing the real demographic numbers of local need, recommended against increasing rates —stating “there is little evidence to support that the rate is growing at the rate reported by RGC,” and as such, there appeared to be “no immediate need to expand the size of the natural gas portfolio.” A recently released SCC Hearing Summary raises questions — such as why, after Roanoke Gas has asserted for decades it was not economical to bring natural gas to Franklin County, MVP now makes it financially advisable?”

Read the full Roanoke Times commentary

Smaller rate increase for Roanoke Gas customers recommended by SCC official

Wednesday Nov. 20, 2019

Roanoke Gas Co. acted prudently when it decided to build two gate stations, in Franklin and Montgomery counties, to connect with the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a hearing examiner for the State Corporation Commission has determined. The company’s involvement with the controversial natural gas pipeline has been a bone of contention in its request to increase base rates for residential customers by nearly 11% — a proposal that now goes to the full commission.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Crawford: Why pipelines will lead to higher energy prices

Tuesday Nov. 12, 2019

Dan Crawford is chair of the Sierra Club Roanoke Group. He lives in Roanoke.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline claims to have over 230 miles of pipe laid, but they have a lot of complicated, expensive construction challenges ahead, not to mention the numerous suspended permits and legal challenges due to work that fails to meet numerous regulatory requirements. You’ve heard the old saying; Don’t throw good money after bad. Read on, please…

Read the full Roanoke Times commentary

Letter: What’s next?

Sunday Nov. 10, 2019

The Roanoke Times and national media recently covered numerous climate strike activities with lots of signs, chants and speeches. Since this climate emergency impacts us all, where do we go from here? What can we personally do? First, educate yourself. Do you know who Greta Thunberg is? Have you learned actual details of the proposed Green New Deal? Do you know where your power comes from? Ignorance is our biggest challenge, but as sixteen-year-old Greta says: “The climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.”…

Read the full Roanoke Times letter-to-the-editor

Mountain Valley co-owner puts cap on investment in pipeline

Tuesday Nov. 5, 2019

Con Edison, the large New York-based utility company, is scaling back its investment in the troubled Mountain Valley Pipeline. Con Edison (NYSE: ED) revealed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday that its subdiary CET Gas will cap its investment in MVP, the 300-mile pipeline that has been mired in legal cases on the state and federal level, to $530 million. Con Edison has already spent about $488 million. CET Gas has a 12.5 percent interest in MVP, which is also owned by EQM Midstream Partners LP (NYSE: EQM), which is a related company of Pittsburgh-based Equitrans Midstream Corp. (NYSE: ETRN). Con Edison said in the filing that limiting investment is part of the joint venture agreement, although it’s not clear if any other of the companies in the joint venture agreement have also done so. That will likely whittle Con Edison’s MVP stake to 10 percent, according to the filing. The pipeline is owned by EQM Midstream Partners, NextEra Capital Holdings, Con Edison Transmission, WGL Midstream and RGC Midstream LLC.

Read the full Pittsburgh Business Times report

Pyramid Scheme or Fraud?

Monday Nov. 4, 2019

The Jig is Up: EQT to Sell MVP – Pyramid Scheme or Fraud?

EQT just quietly informed its shareholders in its quarterly report that it will sell its share of EQM next year, valued now at only $750 Million. EQM is the spin-off company that EQT shed into a separate company to own its share of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Construction costs were originally expected to be $3.5 Billion, MVP is now projected to cost at least $5.5 Billion, if it is ever completed at all. The Mountain Valley Pipeline project was conceived by EQT five years ago. Plans were drawn up in their offices in Pittsburgh. The story is that they drew a line on a map for the 300+ mile route they intended to carve through the Appalachian Mountains to build this behemoth pipe to make a fortune and control the sale of their fracked gas. EQT was sure that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would approve the project because the industry lobbyists had gotten the Natural Gas Act passed and it would be easy. The FERC approval would guarantee MVP an 18% government-assured return on the massive $3.5 Billion construction costs and more important, give them the incredible power of eminent domain to take private land from anyone, an authority originally intended for projects that are required for the public good.

Read the full Preserve Craig posting

Under questioning by 4th Circuit at pipeline hearing, state concedes Union Hill’s racial status

Tuesday Oct. 29, 2019

Lakshmi Fjord began to cry after an attorney for the State Air Pollution Control Board conceded in federal court Tuesday that Union Hill, a community established by freed slaves in Buckingham County after the Civil War, is indeed overwhelmingly populated by African Americans. Deputy Solicitor General Martine Cicconi made the concession under sharp questioning by Chief Judge Roger Gregory in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It came during a hearing on the legality of an air pollution permit the state board issued in January for a natural gas compressor station on the site of a former plantation where the forebears of some Union Hill residents worked as slaves. The outcome remains uncertain, but two environmental organizations’ appeal of the state air permit represents yet another hurdle at the 4th Circuit for the 600-mile, $7.75 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Read the full Richmond Times-Dispatch news report

Pipeline contractors owe about $1.5 million in unpaid taxes, Franklin County says

Tuesday Oct. 29, 2019

ROCKY MOUNT, Va (WDBJ7) – In back lots, and on roadways, you’ll find them waiting: the excavators, the bulldozers, the trailers. Each one is a vital piece in constructing the Mountain Valley Pipeline. And each one, says Franklin County’s Commissioner of Revenue Margaret Torrence, is a piece of taxable property. “Even though we do not have a business license, we do tax the assets,” she said.

But those taxes haven’t been getting paid. Over the last year, Torrence says dozens of different contractors and subcontractors have been operating in the county. During that time, those companies have racked up what she estimates is a $1.5 million personal property tax bill.

Read the full WDBJ7 news report

Christopulos named Cox Conserves Hero, scores $60K grant for Appalachian Trail Conservancy

Tuesday Oct. 22, 2019

Good news is great, but it’s even better when it arrives ahead of schedule. And a five-figure award from a national competition? That has little shortage of appeal, too. On Tuesday around noon, Diana Christopulos got both: early glad tidings in the form of a sudden, oversized check for $60,000. That was the prize for being named the 2019 National Cox Conserves Hero, an annual award presented by Cox Enterprises and the Trust for Public Land.

Christopulos, 71, is president of the Blue Ridge Land Conservancy and the Roanoke Valley Cool Cities Coalition and a former president and current vice president of the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club. She’s an outspoken environmental watchdog, most recently with regard to the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and a vocal advocate for conservation who has campaigned for reductions in the carbon footprints of local governments.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Another delay, cost increase for Mountain Valley Pipeline

Tuesday Oct. 22, 2019

The projected cost of building the Mountain Valley Pipeline has gone up by another half a billion dollars. And the expected completion date, most recently slated for mid-2020, has been pushed back to the end of that year. In an announcement Tuesday, Mountain Valley attributed the latest delay and revised cost estimate — now at between $5.3 billion and $5.5 billion — to “various legal and regulatory challenges.” The Pittsburgh-based company has lost three sets of federal permits, following legal challenges by environmental groups that argued the buried natural gas pipeline would pose risks to the water, land and wildlife along its 303-mile route.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Reynolds: Virginia chambers should renounce pipelines

Tuesday Oct. 22, 2019

Ed Reynolds is retired from a global engineering and technology company. He has worked in the Roanoke city schools for the last eight years as a volunteer and substitute teacher. He lives in Roanoke.

The national media headlines read. ”After skepticism, U.S. Chamber of Commerce forms Climate-Change Task Force.” Holy smokes — and major wildfires, and killer hurricanes, and massive flooding, and continental droughts, and oceans rising, and diseases spreading globally, and major health issues abound — what in the world is going on??? That’s what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce decided it wanted to know, when it announced that it was forming a climate change task force to ascertain just how their members and consumer/customers are positively responding to the huge global challenge of mitigating the horrendous consequences to humanity and Mother Earth of rapidly advancing climate change. Make no mistake: This is a bold and admirable response by the National Chamber of Commerce to this national climate change emergency.

Here’s a more urgent message to Barry DuVal, President and CEO Virginia Chamber, the Northam Administration and regional chambers across the state: Given the recent actions by your national chamber, yet shackled with your tone-deaf and vision-less unmitigated support of the private profit Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast Pipelines, it is regrettable that your organizations are clearly out-of-step with the global mobilization to fight the problem of our changing climate.

Read the full Roanoke Times commentary

Work on Mountain Valley Pipeline is winding down

Sunday Oct. 20, 2019

Winter is coming early for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Although construction is winding down for the season, it’s not just because of the coming freezing temperatures that will make it difficult to dig trenches along mountain slopes for the buried natural gas pipeline. Even if it was being built in the tropics, this project would be stalled. Mountain Valley has lost three sets of key permits — all suspended because of the pipeline’s impact on the environment — that have fallen like slow-motion dominoes for a project that was supposed to be done by now. The most recent blow came last week, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered the company to “cease immediately” all work on the interstate pipeline, at least until questions raised by the latest legal challenge are resolved.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Appeals court orders stay of Mountain Valley Pipeline permit

Friday Oct. 11, 2019

Already slowed by the loss of two permits and a lawsuit that challenges a third one, construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline hit another major roadblock Friday. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a stay to a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, pending its review of lawsuit brought by environmental groups headed by the Sierra Club. Following the late afternoon stay, the club said it “effectively means construction must stop” on the 303-mile pipeline. Mountain Valley suspended new construction on some stretches of the pipeline in August, three days after the lawsuit claimed that an approval from the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to adequately protect endangered species in the project’s path.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Mountain Valley Pipeline to pay more than $2M in environmental violation suit

Friday Oct. 11, 2019

RICHMOND, Va. (WDBJ7) – The Commonwealth of Virginia has reached an agreement with Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC that will force the company to submit to court-ordered and court-supervised compliance with environmental protections and impose additional layers of independent, third-party monitoring on the project, and require the payment of a $2.15 million civil penalty. The agreement resolves the lawsuit filed in December 2018 by Attorney General Mark R. Herring on behalf of the State Water Control Board and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and includes the following key terms: (see report)…

…In December 2018, Attorney General Herring, DEQ, and the State Water Control Board filed suit against MVP, LLC alleging environmental violations in Craig, Franklin, Giles, Montgomery, and Roanoke Counties, particularly violations that occurred during significant rain. The suit alleged that MVP violated the Commonwealth’s environmental laws and regulations, as well as MVP’s Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certification, by failing to control sediment and stormwater runoff resulting in impacts to waterways and roads. The matter was referred to the Office of Attorney General by the director of DEQ after numerous inspections identified violations at multiple construction sites.

Read the full WDBJ news report

Editorial: How Appalachian natural gas is connected to Ukraine (sort of)

Monday Oct. 7, 2019

Here’s a riddle for you: How is the Mountain Valley Pipeline connected to the controversy — perhaps even an impeachable controversy — over President Trump’s attempt to get Ukraine to dig up political dirt on Joe Biden? The answer is a broad one: The global market for natural gas.

Pipeline executives say the gas that will flow through the MVP is intended for the domestic market in the Southeast but haven’t ruled out exports. A minority partner said in 2016 that it’s possible some of the gas it bought could wind up being exported to India. In any case, it’s hard to talk about the domestic market for natural gas without pointing out that natural gas exports have surged over the past 15 years. For years, the nation’s natural gas exports were barely measurable. But since 2000, they’ve jumped from 0.24 trillion cubic feet to 3.61 trillion cubic feet last year — a 15-fold increase. You can thank (or blame) the fracking of the Appalachian shale fields. President Trump has been an especially vocal pitchman for natural gas exports. Even if no Mountain Valley Pipeline gas goes overseas, it indirectly helps send other American natural gas overseas by increasing the nation’s surplus of natural gas. That leads us to the global market for natural gas, and once we start talking about that, it’s hard not to talk about Russia, which means it’s hard not to talk about Ukraine.

Read the full Roanoke Times editorial

Justices reject pipeline, wildfire cases

Monday Oct. 7, 2019

The Supreme Court will not wade into a closely watched battle over a practice that allows natural gas pipeline developers to access private lands before paying.

Givens v. Mountain Valley Pipeline, a case that deals with a type of eminent domain known as “quick take,” was among a long list of petitions the justices rejected this morning.

The high court declined to consider landowners’ plea that the builders of the 300-mile pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia should not be able to begin construction on their property without first paying “just compensation,” as guaranteed under the Constitution. “Obviously, we are disappointed; we felt like our position and our arguments were correct and that some of these courts had gotten this issue completely wrong,” said attorney Chris Johns, who represented landowners in the case. This is at least the second time the Supreme Court has declined to review the issue of quick take. Court watchers had considered it unlikely that the justices would take up the case

Read the full E&E News report

Franklin Co. candidates give thoughts on business park, pipeline at forum

Monday Oct. 7, 2019

MONETA — As Election Day draws near, the Summit View Business Park has once again emerged as one of the top campaign issues in Franklin County. All three board of supervisors candidates who spoke at a Monday night election forum voiced concerns about the multimillion dollar effort to develop a 550-acre business park…

…Questions from the audience helped to guide the discussion. In addition to asking about the business park, candidates were also prompted to weigh in on the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Supreme Court showdown set over pipeline crossing of Appalachian Trail

Friday Oct. 4, 2019

The stage is set for a high-stakes showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s proposed crossing of the Appalachian Trail. The court agreed on Friday to hear an appeal of a decision by a Richmond-based federal appeals court last year. That court revoked the permit the U.S. Forest Service issued to allow a partnership led by Dominion Energy to build the proposed natural gas pipeline beneath the Appalachian Trail between Augusta and Nelson counties in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December that the Forest Service did not have authority to allow the $7.75 billion pipeline to cross beneath the trail at a critical chokepoint for the 600-mile project to link shale gas wells in West Virginia with energy markets in southeastern Virginia and eastern North Carolina.

Read the full Richmond Dispatch news report

Forest conservation grants awarded to offset damage from Mountain Valley Pipeline

Monday Sept. 30, 2019

Forest conservation grants totaling nearly $4 million have been awarded as part of an effort to offset environmental damage to Southwest Virginia caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation announced the six grants Monday to restore and protect woodlands in Bland, Botetourt, Charlotte, Roanoke and Rockbridge counties. It was the latest disbursement from a fund established last year, when Mountain Valley agreed to pay a total of $27.5 million to compensate for the forest fragmentation and water pollution that was expected from clearing land and digging trenches for the massive buried pipe.

Read the full news report in Roanoke Times

Sligh: Clean water rule change threatens state powers

Monday Sept. 30, 2019

David Sligh is Conservation Director for Wild Virginia.

The Trump administration is proposing changes to Clean Water Act regulations to limit the abilities of states and local communities to protect their waters from harmful federally-licensed projects. This would encroach on Virginians’ rights to protect and preserve our natural treasures and must be met with strong opposition. Attorney General Mark Herring must speak and act against this assault by strongly objecting during a formal administrative process now underway and, if necessary, going to court to protect and defend our interests…

…The Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are examples that foreshadow how much harder it would be to protect environmental resources and maintain water quality standards, if we lose any 401 authority. In 2017, then-Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam called for analyses of every proposed waterbody crossing, transparent state processes, and full public involvement in pipelines reviews. The Virginia DEQ refused to conduct those individual crossing reviews, in part blaming a lack of resources. That failure also limited the chance for the public to be involved and affect the outcomes of those processes…

Read the full commentary in the Roanoke Times

Demand for MVP Southgate pipeline exaggerated, state says

Saturday Sept. 28, 2019

Many opponents have said there isn’t a real need for the MVP Southgate pipeline proposed to come through Alamance County (NC), but now state and federal environmental regulators and other, competing, pipeline companies are saying the same. “At this time the department remains unconvinced that the project satisfies the criteria for the commission to deem it in the public interest, and whether it is essential to ensure future growth and prosperity for North Carolinians,” Sheila Holman, assistant secretary for the environment at the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Without demonstrated demand, the pipeline would just give Dominion Energy, formerly PSNC, an exclusive excess capacity, the DEQ writes. The proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate would be a 72-mile line connecting to the existing MVP in Pittsylvania County, Va., to carry Marcellus Shale gas to the distribution system south of Graham.

Read the full Burlington NC Times-News report

Plans for pipeline work area atop Poor Mountain draw objections from Roanoke County

Friday Sept. 27, 2019

Roanoke County is objecting to a temporary workspace for the builders of a natural gas pipeline, saying its location at the top of Poor Mountain could be seen for miles. Mountain Valley Pipeline has yet to make a formal request for the workspace, which would involve clearing about an acre of woods where Honeysuckle Road runs along a row of television and radio towers. But tentative plans call for water tanks to be placed on the land for hydrostatic testing, which involves pumping large amounts of water through the 42-inch diameter pipe to check for leaks before it begins to transport natural gas.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

Energy Giants Spend Big on Lobbying to Clear Pipeline Path Through National Forests, Appalachian Trail

Wednesday Sept. 25, 2019

A trio of utility giants building a natural gas pipeline that would cut across the Appalachian Trail has spent more than $109 million lobbying federal lawmakers and officials since the $7.8 billion project was unveiled five years ago, according to a MapLight analysis. The controversial 600-mile-long project, which is being compared to the Dakota Access Pipeline because of its stiff opposition from Native and local communities, would bisect the fabled trail, as well as the Blue Ridge Parkway and a pair of national forests. Appeals courts have thrown out seven separate permits for the project, with sentiment running so high that one judge wrote an opinion using a quote from The Lorax to blast the U.S. Forest Service for its failure “to speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”

Read the full report in MapLight News: Defending Democracy

Virginia can’t reach its 2050 climate goal if it keeps allowing natural gas infrastructure

Tuesday Sept. 24, 2019

On Sept. 16, Gov. Ralph Northam announced a forward-looking objective of achieving 100 percent renewable electricity for Virginia by 2050. Unfortunately, Virginia cannot reach this goal if the governor, the General Assembly, and the state air and water control boards continue rubber-stamping natural gas pipelines and electric power plants that will further disrupt our climate and exacerbate environmental and public health problems in Virginia. Just last November, the authors of this article were purged from our positions as members of Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board and State Water Control Board by Northam after we questioned the approval of new pipelines for fracked natural gas that, in addition to having serious impacts on public health, air and water quality, would drastically increase Virginia’s greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating the climate crisis…

…Instead of urgently investing entirely in new highly efficient wind and solar electricity generation, Virginia’s utilities are fixated on spending over $8 billion on new methane infrastructure. Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline would bring fracked methane to Virginia and the Carolinas. Roanoke Gas Company, which is determined to support the Mountain Valley Pipeline, is seeking higher rates to help finance it. Virginia’s governor, General Assembly and regulatory boards are approving these methane fossil fuel projects without regard to their adverse climate impacts.

Read the full article in Virginia Mercury

Hadwin: Roanoke Gas customers will pay for MVP

Monday Sept. 23, 2019

Thomas Hadwin served as an executive for electric and gas utilities in Michigan and New York. He lives in Waynesboro.

Citizens of Roanoke must choose their energy and economic future. Existing businesses want to expand and new ones want to move here. RGC Resources will invest over $50 million to become a 1% owner of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) intending to make a big profit by owning part of a pipeline. The MVP has been routed through the Summit View Industrial Park in Franklin County. Roanoke Gas claims it will be cheaper to use the MVP than expanding the existing system to serve this area. The shorter connections to the MVP are cheaper than a connection to the East Tennessee pipeline from Franklin County. But that’s not the whole story. By connecting to the MVP, Roanoke Gas must pay at least $71 million over the next 20 years, even if only some or none of its capacity reservation is used. Escalating prices for the delayed pipeline will make the cost of that contract closer to $100 million. Roanoke Gas intends to spread these higher costs among its existing customers.

Read the full commentary in the Roanoke Times

Letter: Governor cares for big money

Friday Sept. 13, 2019

The irony of Gov. Ralph Northam announcing the broadband expansion into Franklin County on the very site where Roanoke Gas will tap into the Mountain Valley Pipeline was not lost by protesters on the scene. The broadband need is understood, yet it is inconceivable Northam was in Franklin County while not surveying the MVP damage nearby, and that breaks my heart. Note some problems encountered by landowners:

-A 120-foot section of pipe floating (about a year) in water in a trench on Anne and Steve Bernard’s property. The Bernards worry this could weaken the joints. Mountain Valley Watch notes about a dozen similar situations. (Roanoke.com, June 15).

-The Reilly’s Four Corners Farm closed (2018) when their land was devastated by MVP/flooded, with a section of pipe in water. (Roanoke.com, June 15). Photographs show Little Teel Creek, formerly clear, now is a muddy river.

-MVP has 300+ violations of environmental regulations and faces a lawsuit from Attorney General Mark Herring.

Read the full letter-to-the-editor in the Roanoke Times

Editorial: Can the Appalachian Trail block pipelines?

Sunday Sept. 8, 2019

Who owns the Appalachian Trail? Sometime this fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will have something to say on that, even if only indirectly. The immediate question is a procedural one: Will the nation’s highest court decide to hear an appeal of the case styled Cowpasture River Preservation Association v. U.S. Forest Service? Behind that, though, is a practical question that hits home in this part of Virginia — and beyond: Who owns the trail? Here’s why that matters: One possible answer could make it difficult, if not impossible, to build either the Atlantic Coast Pipeline or the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Read the full editorial in the Roanoke Times

After a year in the trees, opponents continue to block work on the pipeline

Friday Sept 6, 2019

ELLISTON — Along a 303-mile corridor of land stripped bare for a natural gas pipeline, the only trees left standing are here, on a steep mountainside in Montgomery County. And it is here, not coincidentally, that opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline are stationed high above the ground in a white pine and a chestnut oak. Meant to block construction of the deeply divisive project, the tree-sit marked its one-year anniversary Thursday in a patch of forest that has remained largely untouched as developers build the massive pipeline from northern West Virginia through Southwest Virginia to connect with a pipeline near the North Carolina line. From her vantage point in the woods, pipeline opponent Lucy Branham had no doubt that the two protesters, who sat in tree stands about 50 feet above her head, were making a difference in the fight.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

David Seriff: In Virginia, we’ve been there and done that with gas pipeline

Sunday Sept. 1, 2019

I consider the Greensboro area my second home since I lived there about 10 years ago before moving to Blacksburg, Va. Therefore, I was distressed to learn the area faces the same disaster we’ve confronted in southwest Virginia. Nearly five years ago people across West Virginia and Virginia received letters in the mail announcing that their homes and farms would be in the path of the planned Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300-mile-long, 42-foot-wide, high-pressure pipeline carrying natural gas produced by fracking. The project was promoted as an economic boon that would provide numerous jobs and cheap energy. It didn’t take long for citizens to discover that the pipeline — MVP, for short — was a get-rich quick scheme riddled with lies by energy companies. As Virginians continue to fight this assault on citizens’ rights and our environment, I was horrified to learn that my friends in North Carolina are now being fed the same exact lies.

Read the complete Greensboro News & Record op-ed piece

2 West Virginia Mountain Valley pipeline protesters arrested

Friday August 30, 2019

LAWN, W.Va. (AP) — Authorities say two people who locked themselves to equipment at a Mountain Valley Pipeline work site have been arrested. WOAY-TV reports 22-year-old Andrew J. Saltzberg and 21-year-old Cameron B. Angeiopouus were charged with trespassing on Thursday. The station says the two were protesting the pipeline in Lawn, an unincorporated community in Greenbrier County. Conservation groups have railed against the 303-mile natural gas pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, and have asked a federal court to toss two key permits for the project.

Read the full Roanoke Times news report

FERC asks for new review of endangered species in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline

Wednesday August 28, 2019

The fate of endangered species is becoming more of a danger to the Mountain Valley Pipeline. In a letter Wednesday, the lead federal agency overseeing construction of the natural gas pipeline asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its earlier finding that the project would not significantly harm protected fish and bats in its path. The request from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and word from the Fish and Wildlife Service that it will comply, came two weeks after the Sierra Club and other environmental groups filed a legal challenge to the service’s 2017 opinion.

In The News

Lawsuit: Contaminated soil was Big Run-bound

Letter: Concerned MVP construction could expand coronavirus

Federal reviews delay Mountain Valley Pipeline yet again

Bowers, Christopulos and Smusz: COVID-19 and an army of pipeline workers don’t mix

DEQ notes problems with erosion control during lull in work on Mountain Valley Pipeline

Editorial: What the Constitution Pipeline says about Virginia’s pipelines

Letter: Pipeline bust or BOOM?

Pristine Waters At Bottom Creek Gorge

Mountain Valley weighs options should its crossing of the Appalachian Trail be blocked

Pipeline opponents, trail advocates travel to Washington for Supreme Court hearing

Supreme Court Seems Ready to Back Atlantic Coast Pipeline Permit

Pipeline protester charged with 3 assaults of MVP workers

Hurst: Virginia not doing enough on pipelines

Mountain Valley Pipeline extension clears environmental review by FERC

Offset for pipeline damage to more than double size of Read Mountain Preserve

Environmental problems continue with Mountain Valley Pipeline, group says

Christopulos & Bowers: What you should know about the Roanoke Gas price increase: an open letter to customers and company shareholders

Charge dismissed against Mountain Valley Pipeline opponent

SCC approves Roanoke Gas rate increase in part; customers to get refunds

Seventy-six-year-old pipeline protester found guilty of trespassing, told to stay off work sites

4th Circuit vacates state air permit for Buckingham pipeline compressor station

Virginia Landowners file constitutional case against FERC & Mountain Valley Pipeline

Letter: Nonrenewable energy crossing the (pipe) line

Latest lawsuit against Mountain Valley Pipeline contests the taking of private land

Letter: Colossal blunder

Editorial: 20 questions for 2020

Editorial: 19 questions, and 19 answers, for 2019

Natural gas development is speeding up in Virginia. Legislators will have to square that with state climate goals.

Looking back at some of 2019’s local news stories and asking ‘What Happened To?’

Editorial: How will we remember 2019?

Photos: Pipeline protesters continue tree-sitting on Christmas Day

Pipeline protesters push past Christmas

Wilson: Forest Service wants to reduce public input

Dominion still sees U.S. Atlantic Coast natgas pipe online in 2022 despite Morgan Stanley’s doubts

Judge approves $2.15 million settlement of lawsuit against Mountain Valley Pipeline

Munley: Past time for water board to stop pipeline

Early plans unveiled for proposed Brush Mountain trail network

Texas construction company no longer working on Mountain Valley Pipeline

Despite setbacks, Mountain Valley Pipeline inches forward

Editorial: Newspapers stories don’t just happen

Pipeline opponents ask court to reject agreement between Virginia and MVP

Public comments being taken on lawsuit against Mountain Valley Pipeline

Bondurant and Leech: The ‘public need’ argument for the MVP grows weaker

Smaller rate increase for Roanoke Gas customers recommended by SCC official

Crawford: Why pipelines will lead to higher energy prices

Letter: What’s next?

Mountain Valley co-owner puts cap on investment in pipeline

Pyramid Scheme or Fraud?

Under questioning by 4th Circuit at pipeline hearing, state concedes Union Hill’s racial status

Pipeline contractors owe about $1.5 million in unpaid taxes, Franklin County says

Christopulos named Cox Conserves Hero, scores $60K grant for Appalachian Trail Conservancy

Another delay, cost increase for Mountain Valley Pipeline

Reynolds: Virginia chambers should renounce pipelines

Work on Mountain Valley Pipeline is winding down

Appeals court orders stay of Mountain Valley Pipeline permit

Mountain Valley Pipeline to pay more than $2M in environmental violation suit

Editorial: How Appalachian natural gas is connected to Ukraine (sort of)

Justices reject pipeline, wildfire cases

Franklin Co. candidates give thoughts on business park, pipeline at forum

Supreme Court showdown set over pipeline crossing of Appalachian Trail

Forest conservation grants awarded to offset damage from Mountain Valley Pipeline

Sligh: Clean water rule change threatens state powers

Demand for MVP Southgate pipeline exaggerated, state says

Plans for pipeline work area atop Poor Mountain draw objections from Roanoke County

Energy Giants Spend Big on Lobbying to Clear Pipeline Path Through National Forests, Appalachian Trail

Virginia can’t reach its 2050 climate goal if it keeps allowing natural gas infrastructure

Hadwin: Roanoke Gas customers will pay for MVP

Letter: Governor cares for big money

Editorial: Can the Appalachian Trail block pipelines?

After a year in the trees, opponents continue to block work on the pipeline

David Seriff: In Virginia, we’ve been there and done that with gas pipeline

2 West Virginia Mountain Valley pipeline protesters arrested

FERC asks for new review of endangered species in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline

Munley: Northam is ‘greenwashing’ MVP

Report outlines improvements for an underfunded, struggling DEQ

Environmental groups seek total halt to work on Mountain Valley Pipeline

Why the Mountain Valley Pipeline is uniquely risky

Letter: MVP and Yellow Finch tree-sitters

Letter: Ironic