Author: Ben Hitchcock

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Pipeline voices: Activists look back on a historic victory

In 2018, Dominion began cutting down trees to make way for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which has now been canceled. Photo: Pipeline CSI

On July 5, Dominion Energy abruptly canceled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, an $8 billion project that would have carried natural gas 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina. Environmental activists of all persuasions spent six years fighting the project before finally prevailing over the gigantic power corporation. As the victory set in, C-VILLE caught up with some of central Virginia’s anti-pipeline activists, giving them a chance to reflect—and look ahead. The following interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

 

John Laury

John Laury is the secretary of Friends of Buckingham. He lives in Union Hill, a historically Black community in rural Buckingham County that would have been disrupted by the pipeline.

C-VILLE: Where were you when you heard the news? What was that moment like?

JL: It was amazing to me. I have been praying about this. We have been in the struggle for—working on our sixth year. Really, I was elated. I felt the load was lifted off of me. But at the same time I wasn’t sure that what I heard was true.

Then my mind began to reflect back, to one of the Board of Supervisors meetings two years back, when our pastor Paul Wilson spoke. Dominion was in control at the time. 

He gave the example of David and Goliath. David, a little shepherd boy, with smooth stones and a slingshot, going against Goliath and all of his weaponry. But David was going in the name of God, and Goliath was going on his strength. 

We were always talked to as if this was a done deal. We were even told, “you’re wasting your time. You can’t go against Dominion.” This is what we were against.

Can you describe your home in Union Hill a little bit? What role do you think Union Hill played in the victory against the pipeline?

From where I live now, I was raised across the road. I would be the third generation raised on that 52 acres. We grew greens, and always a garden every year. Fruit trees. That generation believed in raising their food, preparing in summer for the winter.

I enjoyed the four seasons. I enjoyed the people and the natural earth. Spent a long time in the woods. Ate a lot of fruit off the trees the other generation had planted.

We depend on an underground water source, we have wells, that’s the source of water for our home.

As we spoke on panels in different areas of the state—some out of state—we realized that there were other states dealing with similar issues that were detrimental to them as well. The pattern was in the areas of people of color, and the poor, lower income areas…When we raised awareness as to what was happening here in Union Hill, that made a difference.

It’s not just a Union Hill issue. It’s a people issue. And as one of the quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King tells us, if people are hurting anywhere in this world, it should be the concern of all of us.

 

Alice Clair

Alice Clair is a local musician who grew up in Nelson County. Her childhood home is less than a mile from where the pipeline would have run.

C-VILLE: What was your reaction to the news?

AC: I was screaming and crying. No exaggeration, I was screaming and crying. Just, ultimate elation—and also relief. I always said it wasn’t going to happen. But for that to come true is a relief.

You’re a musician. You wrote some songs about the pipeline. What role do you think music played in the effort over the last six years?

Robin and Linda [Williams] are songwriters in Augusta County, and they wrote “We Don’t Want Your Pipeline.” And that has become a classic for us in Virginia, and maybe across the U.S., fighting pipelines.

When I was in high school, Dominion would set up information sessions for the public in our gym. We would go in and be protesting in my high school, people would bring their guitars and play that song. 

I think music, it motivates in every kind of way. If you can get a bunch of people together singing a song, that’s a great way to energize people towards a common good.

Can music help translate this victory into something even bigger?

I had friends travel out to fight against the Keystone and the DAPL pipelines. There’s been so much music that’s come out of that. Not only using old folk songs of protest, but making new ones. 

The fight is not over even though I won at home—I’m so lucky that I was one of the few that could win at home. My land out in Nelson is not going to be affected anymore. Time to turn our eyes to the next one. We’re looking at the Mountain Valley Pipeline now. It is not over, but we’re feeling darn good. 

This is how it should work. If our country may turn to a true democracy one day, that’s what it’s all about. The people using their voice. If the majority don’t want it, it shouldn’t be there. 

 

Ben Cunningham

Ben Cunningham is the field director of the Pipeline Compliance Surveillance Initiative, a group that used technology and community volunteers to document the construction violations Dominion committed as they started building the pipeline. 

C-VILLE: Where were you when you heard the news?

BC: I was about to bite into a really killer sandwich at 3:12pm on Sunday when my intern with my Pipeline CSI program, Virginia Paschal, texted me, all capital letters, CONGRATULATIONS!…Then she sent me a link to an article about it. Then I spent the next half hour just crying in joy and disbelief. 

What was the final straw for Dominion? 

We would never claim that this was all one group or all one strategy’s effort. Death by a thousand cuts—we all believe that’s what it took. It’s gone from Supreme Court hearings and all sorts of different legal battles, to people [protesting] in the trees trying to stop this and other pipelines, to science-and-technology-monitoring programs like ours, as well as strategies like political pressure. Really, community organizing is the bottom line.

…The story of environmental work in this country is the project never dies, people get burnt out, and so on. So I’ve just been plugging away at it, as have hundreds and maybe a thousand other people in various different ways.

Can the win against the ACP set an example for activists fighting other projects?

We’ve got, now, an example that we can win, against the largest political contributor to both parties in our state, arguably the most powerful corporation in our state, and one of the most powerful utilities in the country.

There are countless injustices around the world. I believe in starting where we live—it’s what we’re most familiar with, where we can be most powerful, and where we can effect the most change.

 

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Opinion

This week, 7/15

The main character in the story on page 10 of this week’s paper doesn’t have a name. He doesn’t have a face. 

Shortly after a video of the brutal arrest of Christopher Gonzalez was posted on Instagram July 8, the Charlottesville Police Department released 17 minutes of body camera footage of the incident. Since arriving two years ago, Police Chief RaShall Brackney has touted transparency—releasing the video, the department implied, would help satisfy the community’s demands.

The police weren’t willing to release the officer’s name, however, as the arrest remains subject to an “ongoing investigation.”

So I wrote the story about “the officer” and Christopher Gonzalez.

This identification imbalance—which the police created and which is felt in the prose—is present in the body camera footage, too. The body camera lets us hear a voice; it lets us see a set of hands as they act. But, to an amazing extent, it leaves the wearer out of the picture. 

(Then, of course, the camera falls off at a critical moment—a neat symbolic summation of current police oversight practices as a whole.)

After watching the footage over and over again, I feel like I know Gonzalez. I’d recognize him if I passed him on the Downtown Mall. The same can’t be said for the officer. This is a problem because, again, that man is the pivotal figure in this story. He’s the one who turned this into a newsworthy situation—he’s the one who initiated the violence. The police department, while preaching transparency, has slyly managed to erase him from the narrative.

Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Review Board remains tangled in municipal government purgatory, but this arrest shows how much the community needs strong and vigilant police oversight. A body camera by itself can’t turn and look up at the officer who wears it. As Harold Folley says in the story, “police can’t police themselves.”

 

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News

Use of force: Violent arrest of homeless man on Downtown Mall concerns activists, experts

Body camera footage released by the police department shows an officer grabbing Christopher Gonzalez, moments before throwing him to the ground.

“If you can stay off the Downtown Mall and I don’t see you again, then I won’t take you,” said the Charlottesville police officer.

“That’s not going to happen,” said Christopher Gonzalez, who had been lying on his back on the mall outside CVS. It was 5:30pm on Wednesday, July 8. The sun was shining. 

“Why?” The officer asked.

“I’m going to stay living right here,” said Gonzalez. He was experiencing homelessness, and had nowhere else to go.

“Then I’m going to take you to jail for drunk in public,” the officer responded.

“Well let’s go then,” Gonzalez said.

The officer turned Gonzalez around and started to put him in handcuffs, but Gonzalez pulled his arm away. Moments later, the officer threw Gonzalez up against the wall of the CVS, kneed him in the thigh, and pinned him on the ground in a headlock, where he held him for around 50 seconds. 

An Instagram video showing the physical altercation was posted later that evening, and soon after, at the request of multiple community members, the Charlottesville Police Department released 17 minutes of body camera footage recording the lead-up to the incident. The body camera fell off during the scuffle, so the Instagram video is the only available footage of the physical arrest.

A citizen on the mall saw Gonzalez lying down and called 911, says the CPD. The body cam footage shows that a police officer arrived first; then a rescue squad appeared and gave Gonzalez a clean bill of health. The officer dismissed the rescue squad, and the altercation began. The police department has not released the officer’s name because the incident is subject to an “ongoing investigation.”

Fortunately, Gonzalez did not appear to suffer any physical injuries. He was charged with felony assault of a police officer, as well as with misdemeanors for public intoxication and obstruction of justice.

The officer’s violent arrest of Gonzalez has drawn concern from justice system experts and activists around town.

“I’m a nurse, and I am a researcher, and one of the things that I focus on a lot is strangulation,” says Kathryn Laughon, a UVA nurse and an activist with Charlottesville’s Defund the Police movement. Laughon says, speaking generally, “use of chokeholds by police—it’s unconscionable. There is no safe way to apply pressure to anyone’s neck.”

“We don’t do chokeholds, we don’t teach any sort of neck restraints,” said Police Chief RaShall Brackney in an interview with Victory Church on June 14. 

“[Gonzalez] really didn’t assault the officer,” says Legal Aid Justice Center community organizer Harold Folley. “He pulled away from the officer, but he didn’t assault the officer. It doesn’t justify the officer beating his ass like that.”

Stephen Hitchcock is the executive director of The Haven, a shelter just a few blocks from where the incident took place. 

“We deal with that kind of situation, someone who’s intoxicated, every day, all day,” says Hitchcock. “And we never have to knee the person, and pummel them, and then slam them to the ground, ever. We’ve never had to do that.”

“You give someone a bottle of water. It changes their breathing, it builds a connection with them. A little act of trust and generosity,” Hitchcock says. “How in the world, in this moment, could an officer think that was the way to address this person who’s intoxicated?”

The officer’s treatment of Gonzalez fits into a larger pattern of criminalizing poverty and addiction, say these activists. And Black and brown people feel the effect of those practices at a disproportionate rate.

The officer, standing just a few feet from restaurants where affluent patrons drink the night away, offered Gonzalez a deal—leave the mall and we won’t arrest you. “A drunk in public—it is against the law,” Hitchcock says. “But how many white, wealthy people behind the looping chains [of restaurant patios] are also drunk?”

“To say that, in the city, there are certain places where you can’t be drunk in public, but if you move a block away it’s not a criminal act—that tells me that this isn’t about health and safety,” says Laughon.

“So often, you see [UVA] students getting trashed,” Folley says, “and the officers assist them, help them to where they need to go…But that’s the difference between Black and brown people and white people.”

Arresting people who are experiencing health problems or homelessness makes it more difficult for them to get back on their feet, Hitchcock points out. If the felony charge sticks, it will be harder for Gonzalez to find housing and employment.

The body cam footage shows police officers misbehave in smaller ways, too. Several of the officers who appear in the video are not wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID. And as an officer pats down Gonzalez, he pulls bits of trash and a bottle cap out of Gonzalez’s pocket, which he then litters on the ground. 

Activists see this incident as an example of why it’s necessary to radically change the way police operate in the city. 

“What I see is the importance of a strong Civilian Review Board,” says Folley. “The police should not police themselves.” (Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Review Board has just begun meeting, but it has been entangled in a dispute with City Council over its own bylaws.)

“This is a perfect example of why using armed police to be our first responders to just about every situation is a real problem,” says Laughon. “The money that goes into policing, and to then criminalizing behavior, could be better spent on housing, on health care—those are things that would make the community safer and healthier.”

 

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News

Factory-made: Brewery, restaurant, café hint at the future of Charlottesville’s woolen mill

Charlottesville's old woolen mill is now occupied in part by a selection of trendy dining options. Photo: The Wool Factory

 

Charlottesville’s old woolen mill, peering over the Rivanna River on the town’s eastern edge, had been gathering dust for years. Now, the rubble has been cleared, and it’s time to drink beer.

In 2018, app development company WillowTree began a $25 million overhaul of the building. WillowTree’s employees will move into their 85,000-square-foot offices next year. The Wool Factory, an adjacent 12,000-square-foot hybrid space that includes a brewery, restaurant, and coffee shop, has just opened.

The symbiosis between the two outfits is obvious—The Wool Factory is a selling point for WillowTree, as the tech company tries to tempt employees into town, says Claire Macfarlan, The Wool Factory’s director of operations and sales, while The Wool Factory benefits from a “built-in [customer] base on top of the neighborhood.”

The mill itself was originally built in the 1790s, and has “a mixed history,” says Bill Emory, a longtime Woolen Mills neighborhood resident who’s conducted extensive research into the area’s past.

During the Civil War, the mill produced uniforms for Confederate soldiers. Union troops burned down the building, and its associated railroad bridge, when they occupied Charlottesville in 1865, according to the Encyclopedia Virginia.

In the 20th century, the mill grew into Albemarle County’s most productive industry, and the surrounding area became a steady, white working-class neighborhood.

“They had a large, over 50 percent female workforce,” says Emory. “The people who worked at the mill were able to afford housing in the neighborhood. Of course, it was sharply segregated. There was one African American employee in 1920.”

The woolen mill circa 1920. Photo: Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

The mill closed in the 1960s, and has since served a variety of purposes. Most recently, it was a storage facility. 

“There wasn’t a lot of community interaction with the mill site,” says Emory. “It might have been under-used, but it was never a piece of crap. The previous owners were storing stuff in it so they always took care of the roof.”

Selvedge Brewery, one of The Wool Factory’s three dining options, leans into the setting. It’s full-on urban-industrial brewery chic: The walls are rough brick, the stools are spare metal, and an ancient Remington typewriter sits on a side table. Yellow exposed light bulbs glow from strings above the courtyard.

The Wool Factory comes by some of this character honestly. The green metal lamps that hang from the ceiling are refurbished but original. The gray and white paint—sparse enough to reveal the bricks beneath it—dates back to the building’s industrial days. An original wooden wall separates the kitchen from the dining room in Broadcloth, the Wool Factory’s sit-down restaurant.

“We try to keep it a little bit raw,” says Brandon Wooten, the project’s creative director and a co-founder of Grit Coffee, another tenant. “Normally you have to create the character. We didn’t have to create the character.”

“From the point of view of the historic repurposing and renovation, I’m in awe of the place,” Emory says.

The county’s Architectural Review Board oversees the renovation of historic properties, and the board’s influence can be felt on the property in a few places. An elevated metal chute cuts through the air across the courtyard. “This chute up here that doesn’t do anything had to stay,” says Wooten. 

The renovators replaced all the windows in the mill, but had to install window frames that matched the originals. And the lettering on the side of the building—“Charlottesville Woolen Mill,” in squarish white sans-serif—was freshened up but couldn’t be moved, even though the words are spaced oddly, says Lizzy Reid, a public relations manager working with The Wool Factory. 

The Wool Factory team says it wants to communicate the history of the building to visitors, but doesn’t have concrete plans in place.

“We’re trying to figure out where that stuff will actually go,” Wooten says. They might put historical information on the menus at Broadcloth, he says, and they “have talked about having something you can scan.” 

Macfarlan says they don’t want to install a permanent plaque with historical information, because they wouldn’t be able to remove it during events.

“The names of the beers are very intentional,” says Reid, when asked about the mill’s history. In homage to the space’s original purpose, Selvedge Brewery’s beers are named after fabrics. Patrons can suck down a pint of Seersucker, Herringbone, or even Flannel No. 1.

Now, Emory says, the onus is on the city and county to make the building accessible. Broadway Street, which leads through the Woolen Mills neighborhood to the mill, is a “super-wide street with no pedestrian facilities, no bike facilities,” says Emory. “Totally uninviting place to get to if you’re doing anything other than driving a car.”

WillowTree has said it will offer kayaks to those employees ambitious enough to commute to work via the Rivanna. That’s a creative solution, but it won’t be enough to insulate the neighborhood from hundreds of new commuters. (And brewery-goers beware: Kayaking under the influence is illegal in Virginia.)

“It’s potentially a keystone for recreation and a lot of good things happening,” says Emory. “If the county and the city figure out how they’re going to get people to and fro without destroying all the city neighborhoods around the mill.”

 

This story was corrected 7/9 to reflect that the Albemarle County Architectural Review Board, not the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review, oversaw the renovation of the woolen mill property.

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Opinion

This week, 7/1

Damani Harrison on the set of the "One for George" video shoot. Image: Jason Lappa

A month ago, George Floyd was murdered by the police. Since then, Damani Harrison has led a group of artists “coming together to speak truth to power” in the multimedia “One for George” project—our cover story this week.

Also in this week’s issue: The Charlottesville police department has been harming Black and brown people for decades, but a new oversight body is fighting for power, and protesters are leaving their mark—literally—on the department. Sexual assault is still prevalent on UVA Grounds, but survivors continue to advocate for reform. A statue of a Confederate soldier stands outside the Albemarle County courthouse, but new laws mean county officials can meet this week to start the process to take the monument down. Our public school history books are stuffed with racist, sexist, false narratives, but teachers are gathering to develop anti-racist curriculum alternatives.  The area’s 5th Congressional District is gerrymandered to hell, but a young Black doctor has the best chance to win of any Democrat in a decade.

Each of these conflicts has its own contours. Still, a loose theme is undeniable: This country was purposefully designed to perpetuate inequity and entrench white supremacy. Our city is full of people who believe long-overdue change is both necessary and possible—people who are working to bring that change to fruition.

Saturday is the Fourth of July. This is not an admirable country, but plenty of admirable people live here. This week’s C-VILLE is about some of those people.

 

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News

Leaving a mark: Police department out for arrests after protesters spray paint street

Protesters left spray paint outside the police department after a July 21 demonstration. Photo: Eze Amos

Arrest warrants were issued for six people accused of spray painting the street outside the Charlottesville Police Department over the last two weeks. Police say the demonstrators “vandalized the streets and the sidewalks with cruel, threatening, and hate-filled language.”

The first four charges, announced in a June 25 press release, concerned paint on the sidewalk after the June 21 defund the police rally outside the station. The most common spray-painted slogan was “Black Lives Matter;” other comments included “Murderers belong in jail,” “Fund mental health,” and “Fuck 12.”

The tone of the press release suggests the activists got under the department’s skin. “We will continue to prioritize the public’s health and safety, but criminal actions that deface public spaces or put the safety of others at risk cannot be tolerated,” the release said, adding that police have “launched a full investigation” and are “not finished.”

The department also claimed the clean-up price tag would total $20,000, because, according to its estimates, a section of Market Street would need to be repaved, at a cost of $15,000 reports NBC29. (We know the city is capable of removing spray paint without destroying surfaces—it has removed messages from the Market Street Park Robert E. Lee statue plenty of times, including this past weekend, and the statue is still there.)

The department has been inconsistent in its reactions to public speech in front of its offices. On Wednesday, June 24, the police department’s Twitter page posted a photo showing a sign planted outside the office, reading “We appreciate and support you CPD!!!”

“More kind words and support from our community with these signs in front of our lobby,” the tweet reads. No arrest warrants were issued for the people who placed these signs.

According to Charlottesville Planning Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg, who has been active in cataloging the police department’s public messaging in recent weeks, city attorney John Blair ruled that all signs should be removed from the area under Virginia’s unlawful posting rule.

After the June 21 defund the police rally, some protesters marched down the mall, directing chants at diners sitting outside. Though disruptive, this is constitutionally protected speech. The June 25 police press release implied otherwise, saying the protesters “chose to engage in unacceptable and criminal behavior.”

“Is it appropriate for the police to be running this messaging campaign in its own defense against protests that call for defunding the police?” Stolzenberg asked at Monday’s Police Civilian Review Board meeting.

Charlottesville activists have been demonstrating peacefully for weeks, regularly holding marches calling for defunding the police and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. These are the first arrest warrants issued for activity related to these protests.

Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania will now have to decide whether or not to aggressively prosecute those accused. If the suspects are charged and convicted, they could face a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail.

 

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Willing watchdogs: New Police Civilian Review Board votes to give itself more power

Rosia Parker, along with other members of the People's Coalition, urge the council to accept the bylaws of the Police Civilian Review Board on Oct. 21 2019. Photo: Zack Wajsgras

Two and a half years after the events that sparked its creation, the official Charlottesville Police Civilian Review Board held its first meeting on Monday. National events have led to increased scrutiny of police departments, and so the inaugural meeting of this body dedicated to police oversight was highly anticipated (to the extent that any municipal government meeting can be).

Beginning in 2018, an initial, city-appointed CRB spent a year researching community oversight of policing, and proposed an ordinance and bylaws that would create a powerful permanent oversight board. In 2019, City Council voted through a revised set of rules that weakened the board in a variety of ways, including centralizing power with an executive director, removing the requirement that the police department attend community listening sessions, removing the ability for the CRB to review complaints that are sustained by the police department, and limiting the board’s access to raw stop-and-frisk and use of force data.

Then, in January, three new city councilors took office. Since then, community activists have lobbied for City Council to revisit the initial ordinance and bylaws, noting that all these councilors promised on the campaign trail to support the initial CRB.

City council has repeatedly kicked the can down the road, refusing to re-vote on the initial bylaws until the new, more permanent board members took their seats. “What we’ve said all along is that the new board members can tell us how they function best,” explained Mayor Walker at a City Council meeting in early June.

Now, the new board members are in place, and they’ve told council what they want. On Monday the board voted unanimously to adopt the initial bylaws (although there was debate over how much input city council would have in that decision). “The community spoke through the initial board by saying they wanted a very strong CRB,” said Nancy Carpenter, a member of the new board.

Harold Folley, Walt Heinecke, and Elizabeth Stark, community members who have advocated for the adoption of the initial bylaws, all spoke during the public comment in support of the new board’s desire to revert to the original bylaws. Rosia Parker and Sarah Burke, members of the initial CRB, also voiced their support.

Watson, noticing that Police Chief RaShall Brackey was on the call, asked if Brackney would like to comment on the proceedings. The Chief did not express any particular viewpoint on the actions of the board when handed the mic. “I’m here to just listen like everyone else to see what the interests of the board are and how we can all move forward,” Brackney said.

In a 2019 interview with C-VILLE, Brackney said, “I’ve never been able to understand or get a clear answer as to why there was the development of a Civilian Review Board here.”

Local civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel noted in public comment that the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus plans to introduce legislation at the state level that would institute civilian review boards around the commonwealth. If the caucus’ legislation makes it through the all-blue state government, the CRB could find itself with more power than even the initial bylaws provide.

These dry-sounding municipal decisions have real human stakes: Dorenda Johnson, a lifelong Charlottesville resident and member of the new board, spoke about the importance of a powerful body when she introduced herself.

“I have such a strong passion for it because I have two sons that are young, African-American sons,” Johnson said. “With all that’s going on across the nation, I see that there is a dire need for this to be in place.”

 

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News

Foot on the gas: Anti-pipeline activists fight on, undeterred by Supreme Court

If constructed, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline will cut through these scenic Nelson County hills PC: File photo

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would be allowed to cross underneath the Appalachian Trail. Dominion Energy, the pipeline’s main backer, has characterized the Supreme Court’s decisions as a significant step forward for the controversial project.

If completed, the pipeline would carry natural gas 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina. The project’s initial price tag was $5 billion, but more recent estimates say it will cost as much as $8 billion. Gas was supposed to be flowing by 2019, but the Southern Environmental Law Center says that less than 6 percent of the pipe has been installed so far.

The project has been slowed in part due to years of dedicated work from grassroots activists, who have fought tooth and nail to stop the pipeline from slicing through the Appalachian wilderness. They say the project will have devastating effects on water quality and wildlife in the area, and that it’s not economically necessary.

“This is a major victory for the project,” Dominion says of the decision in a press bulletin. “It paves the way for the ACP to be completed and bring jobs to the region, stimulate the economy and lead us to a cleaner energy future.”

“They’ll parade the decision to shareholders, and probably make some additional press releases to make [the pipeline] seem like an inevitable project,” says Daniel Shaffer, a geospatial consultant for the anti-pipeline coalition Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance. “But it really doesn’t change their situation.”

It’s worth taking a closer look at the terms of the case that came before the Supreme Court. In 2017, the project secured a key construction permit from the U.S. Forest Service. Then, in 2018, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond vacated that permit. Dominion challenged the Fourth Circuit’s decision, and that’s the challenge that went to the Supreme Court.

Lew Freeman, the executive director of ABRA, says the group is “disappointed, but not entirely surprised” that the Supreme Court ruled the way it did. “We’re quick to point out that this is only one of several issues on which the Forest Service permit was struck down,” Freeman says. “Those other reasons for vacating the permit were not challenged by Dominion in this case.”

In other words, the Supreme Court case doesn’t ensure that the Forest Service permit will be reinstated—it just removes one of many hurdles that Dominion will have to clear when it requests another Forest Service permit.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, which is dedicated to protecting the environment, has led the legal opposition to the pipeline. After the decision last week, the SELC noted that eight other permits for the pipeline are still in question.

“Their certificate of public necessity and convenience is under review,” says Shaffer. “They can’t cross any water anywhere. Can’t take any endangered species. Can’t cross under the Blue Ridge Parkway. We don’t know what will happen with the Forest Service permit.”

And in January, a permit to build an invasive compressor station in Buckingham County’s historically black Union Hill neighborhood was thrown out.

If all of this conflict over permits seems confusing and convoluted, that’s exactly the point. Tying up the project in time-consuming and costly litigation has been one of the anti-pipeline group’s core strategies from the beginning. Shaffer says now, he’s “absolutely” optimistic about the possibility of eventually killing the project, “much more so than I was when I first joined the fight.”

ABRA, which is an umbrella organization that coordinates more than 50 environmental groups from West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, continues to fight the pipeline on other fronts, too.

Construction on the project has been halted since 2018, but when it resumes, Shaffer says, ABRA and its subsidiaries will be ready to resume their construction monitoring. Shaffer says they’ve also lent a hand to groups fighting other non-renewable energy projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline or the Header Improvement Project.

Recently, ABRA published a paper that demonstrates how even small amounts of construction in the area can cause significant environmental problems. “Land disturbance in the Appalachian mountain area, because of its excessive rainfall and steep slopes and fragile topography, can spawn landslides with very little disruption,” Freeman says.

“Long term, obviously, we hope it won’t be built,” Shaffer says. “Short term, we hope to keep everybody engaged, to supply our legal partners with any information we can, and continue keeping people educated.”

“I don’t make predictions about what’s going to happen in a political or legislative or legal sense,” says Freeman, when asked if he thinks the pipeline will ever be finished. “I will say this: I believe that this project was wrongheaded from the beginning…We’re going to continue to fight it.”

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Opinion

This week, 6/24

 

“Coronavirus Could Be the End of Alt-Weeklies,” declared a Mother Jones headline in March. Around the country, venerable snark-slinging rags have dropped employees or shut down entirely, crippled by cratering ad revenue. C-VILLE, unfortunately, has not escaped the crash. Our staff is a lot smaller than it was just a few weeks ago. (The newsroom had no input in these decisions: If you’re upset that your favorite journalist is out of work, believe me, you’re not as upset as we are.)

After these changes, I’ve become this paper’s editor. Though I wish the circumstances were different, I’m thrilled to take the reins.

I’ve lived in Charlottesville for 10 years. I went to Charlottesville High School, and first fell in love with this town while sitting in the bleachers during Friday night football games. My writing career started down the street at the Cavalier Daily, UVA’s student paper. For the last six months, I’ve been a news reporter at C-VILLE, and in that time I’ve been impressed by how much I still don’t know about this city. There’s always another stone to overturn.

Moving forward, C-VILLE will keep doing what we do best. We’ll take every opportunity to lend our platform to those whose stories have been historically ignored. We’ll listen when our readers reach out, and reflect those comments back like only local news can. We’ll give credit to people who go the extra mile to feed, or house, or organize their neighbors. (That’s what this week’s feature story, a heartfelt twist on our annual Power Issue, is all about.) And hopefully, we’ll do it with a sense of humor.

We’re local journalists—we work for the community. Don’t ever hesitate to reach out. My email address is in the masthead every week, but it’s here too: editor@c-ville.com. I look forward to hearing from you.—Ben Hitchcock 

 

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Denver’s done: Far-right challenger Bob Good wins 5th District GOP nomination

Bob Good (right) defeated Denver Riggleman in the VA-5 Republican primary last week.

 

In his two years in the House of Representatives, Denver Riggleman sided with Donald Trump on 94.5 percent of votes, according to FiveThirtyEight. But that wasn’t conservative enough for central Virginia’s Republican loyalists, who ended Riggleman’s run in Congress after just one term.

At a June 13 drive-thru party convention, Riggleman lost the nomination to Bob Good, a far-right Republican who has been a county supervisor and Liberty University athletics administrator. Good decided to run because he felt betrayed by Riggleman’s decision to officiate a gay wedding last year.

The election itself was unorthodox. The party held a nominating convention, rather than a primary. That’s not too uncommon for Congressional races—Democrats in the 5th District selected their 2018 nominee through a convention—but this time, due to coronavirus, the 2,500 delegates cast their votes without ever getting out of their cars. The election was held in Campbell County, Good’s home court, and the challenger took home 58 percent of the vote.

Riggleman has protested just about every step of this unusual nominating process, and at midnight on the day of the convention, he tweeted “ballot stuffing has been reported in multiple counties in the #VA05. Voter fraud has been a hallmark of this nomination process.”

Good opposes abortion in all cases, supports “securing America’s borders” against immigration, and wants to make English the national language.

Despite winning the nomination, Good might not literally be on the ballot in November. Just before the convention, it was announced that his campaign failed to turn in the required paperwork to appear on the ballot in the general election. The Virginia Republican Party has asked for an extension, but if it isn’t granted Good will have to run a write-in campaign. (Another Republican running for congress also failed to turn his paperwork in on time—Nick Freitas. You may remember him because he did the same thing last year, and had to run a write-in campaign for the House of Delegates.)

Good’s election is part of a pattern of Republicans turning rightwards in key races around the state. In  2018, they chose conservative firebrand Corey Stewart, who made his name defending Confederate monuments, as their standard-bearer against U.S. Senator Tim Kaine. The only Republican who has so far declared for the 2021 governor’s nomination is state Senator Amanda Chase—earlier this month, Chase said that taking down the Lee statue was “erasing the history of white people,” inspiring a selection of her more established GOP colleagues in the state Senate to compose a joint statement calling her comments “idiotic, inappropriate, and inflammatory.”

These conservative choices come at the end of a decade in which the party has been repeatedly pummeled at the polls. The Virginia GOP has not won a statewide election since 2009, lost three of its seven Congressional seats in 2018, and lost the state House and Senate in 2019, even though the election took place on maps that Republicans had gerrymandered in their favor.

Virginia’s 5th District is also gerrymandered in Republicans’ favor, but in 2018 the election here was as close as it has ever been. The concurrent presidential election will mean high turnout for this year’s Congressional contest, which usually favors Democrats. Virginia Democrats will hold their primary to select Good’s challenger on June 23.