Categories
News

On hold: Dominion faces pipeline permit problems

All is quiet along the proposed path of the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, now that five federal permits have either been thrown out or put on hold.

A vote on a permit that would allow a 54,000-horsepower pipeline compressor station to be built in Buckingham’s historic African American community of Union Hill, on a former slave plantation, has now been deferred twice by the Air Pollution Control Board.

“If they had voted in favor of the permit the other week, it would have been a riot up in there,” says Pastor Paul Wilson, who leads the Union Hill and Union Grove Baptist churches.

Anti-pipeline activists in Buckingham have called Dominion’s plans to build one of three ACP compressors in that community a stark example of environmental injustice and racism, and have alleged that when looking for a sparsely populated place to build, the energy giant intentionally erased a large percentage of the Buckingham population in its application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The number FERC used in its final environmental impact statement on the ACP was 29.6 people per square mile in the area surrounding the pipeline’s path in Buckingham. Dominion asserts that number was provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, but residents say it was off by about 500 percent.

At a December 19 meeting, the State Air Pollution Control Board again kicked the can down the road by rescheduling the compressor station vote for January 8, when it has declared that public comment from attendees—like the 150 concerned citizens who showed up last month—won’t be accepted.

“From what I’m seeing, unless the [previous] comments changed peoples’ minds on the board, it appears that Dominion will probably get that air permit,” says Wilson. After this story went to press, the board voted unanimously to approve the permit, but Wilson says, “the pipeline can still be stopped.”

In fact, construction—which never started in Virginia—has been halted along the entire 600-mile route from West Virginia into North Carolina as other legal battles play out.

The Southern Environmental Law Center is involved in several of the cases and represents a small coalition of local conservation groups.

SELC attorney Greg Buppert notes a December 13 decision handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that threw out a U.S. Forest Service permit that would have allowed the ACP to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail.

Buppert says, “Dominion doubled down” by proposing a route—and nearly all of its alternatives—that went through the same point on the trail because it thought it could get around requirements that apply to national parks.

“It gambled the project on this one location,” says Buppert. “I think the decision sends the route and the company back to the drawing board.”

Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby says 56 other oil or gas pipelines already cross the trail. Dominion is appealing the ruling—and he’s confident it will prevail.

“Opponents’ tactics in the courts are not doing anything to provide additional protection of the environment,” he said in a December 13 statement. “They are only driving up consumer energy costs, delaying access to cleaner energy, and making it harder for public utilities to reliably serve consumers and businesses.”

While Forest Service employees were initially very skeptical of that permit, they decided to approve it, and the court called their decision “mysterious.”

“Part of the story in that case was several years of concern about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline from the Forest Service, and then political pressure from Washington caused the agency to back down on its concerns,” says Buppert. “Dominion went to political appointees to bend the rules for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. With that kind of gamesmanship, the company shouldn’t be surprised that a federal court has thrown out its permit.”

As Pastor Wilson puts it, “Dominion is trying to beat out the clock.” He adds, “This thing is costing more money each day.”

Dominion’s Ruby told the Washington Post that the once-$6.5 billion project is now looking like $7 billion. His company has had to lay off or delay hiring 4,500 construction workers, and the pipeline that was once scheduled to be fully built by the end of the year is now looking at a mid-2020 completion. Ruby did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The SELC also has plans to challenge the pipeline’s entire approval permit because of what Buppert calls “mounting evidence” that it isn’t necessary to meet future energy needs.

“That evidence is significant enough that it’s getting the attention of important elected officials,” says Buppert. He mentions a January 2 newsletter from Delegate David Toscano, in which the legislator compares the ACP to an old automobile in need of a valve job: “It is leaking serious oil, suffers by comparison to newer, more advanced models, and even if it can be made roadworthy, you and I will pay the bill for decades.”

Toscano also notes in his letter that a recent filing from the State Corporation Commission said Dominion’s projections of demand for electricity and gas “have been consistently overstated,” and that existing pipelines are sufficient to meet future needs.

“It’s hard to justify a load forecast prediction that shows aggressive energy demand growth when the actual numbers for the last 10 years are flat,” says Buppert. “It’s an issue that we’ve worked on for a long time, and I think the data and the facts have caught up with Dominion.”

Categories
News

All eyes on the pipeline

Hundreds of anti-Atlantic Coast Pipeline activists have emerged to monitor construction on the $6 billion gas fracking project.

A coalition of more than 50 anti-pipeline groups called the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance launched the Pipeline Compliance Surveillance Initiative last week to ensure strict application of environmental laws and regulations for the ACP, which they say will wreak havoc on its 600-mile course from West Virginia, through nearby areas in Virginia like Nelson and Buckingham counties and into North Carolina.

Volunteers with Pipeline CSI will initially focus on monitoring the many mountainous areas of the pipeline route, where they say pipeline construction threatens water quality in the headwaters of major watershed systems.

“We will continue to challenge the government decisions involving the project,” says Rick Webb, an activist who has been instrumental in the fight against the pipeline since the project was announced in September 2014, and who now chairs Pipeline CSI. “But with certain pre-construction activities already underway, citizen oversight is essential given the limited resources of government agencies that are responsible for regulating pipeline construction.”

Dominion Energy and Duke Energy are the major companies backing the ACP. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which gave them approval to start building it in October (subject to other state and federal approvals), also approved limited tree felling along the pipeline’s route on January 19.

Dominion has started knocking down trees in Virginia and West Virginia, according to spokesperson Aaron
Ruby, who says his company only needs a few more approvals before Dominion requests a notice from FERC to proceed with full construction, which he expects to happen by spring.

But not without the watchdogs.

“The need for citizen oversight of pipeline construction has been made clear by observations of recent pipeline projects and ineffective government agency response to repeated violations and water resource harm,” says Webb. “We have no reason to expect more from the agencies during construction of the ACP.”

Categories
News

Mountaintop removal: Groups argue its definition

In an April 27 telepresser, a number of environmental groups discussed Dominion’s alleged plans to decapitate 38 miles of ridgelines in Virginia and West Virginia to make way for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline. About 5.6 of those miles are atop Roberts Mountain in Nelson County.

Moderated by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, spokespeople from anti-pipeline groups Friends of Nelson, Appalachian Mountain Advocates and the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance discussed some key points of mountaintop removal, including that the majority of the mountains in question would be flattened by 10 to 20 feet, with some places along the route requiring the removal of about 60 feet of ridgetop.

Mountaintop removal also results in an excess of material, known as overburden. In this case, Dominion would likely need to dispose of about 2.47 million cubic yards of it, according to the environmental groups.

“The information that was put out by these groups last week is just totally inaccurate,” says Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby. “We’re not conducting mountaintop removal. That is a total mischaracterization of how we’re building this pipeline.”

According to Ruby, Dominion will “clear and grade a relatively limited area on certain ridgelines,” so workers will have enough space to dig a 10-foot-wide trench, install the pipe and fill the trench back in.

“It is astounding that [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] has not required Dominion to produce a plan for dealing with the millions of cubic yards of excess [overburden],” says Ben Luckett, a staff attorney at Appalachian Mountain Advocates. FERC will eventually approve or deny the project.

But Ruby says that claim from Luckett isn’t true, either. “We are required by federal regulations to fully restore those ridgelines to their original contours using the native material that is either graded or excavated. …For these groups to say we’re going to level the tops of mountains and remove 250,000 dump truck loads of material is completely inaccurate.”

Approximately two miles of ridgeline are proposed to be removed (and replaced) in western Highland County in the George Washington National Forest. According to Rick Webb, the program coordinator for the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition, drainage from a mountain there named Big Ridge will affect two of the state’s remaining native brook trout streams, Townsend Draft and Erwin Draft.

“The Atlantic Coast Pipeline could easily prove itself deadly,” says Joyce Burton, a board member of Friends of Nelson. “Many of the slopes along the right of way are significantly steeper than a black diamond ski slope. Both FERC and Dominion concede that constructing pipelines on these steep slopes can increase the potential for landslides, yet they still have not demonstrated how they propose to protect us from this risk. With all of this, it is clear that the pipeline is a recipe for disaster.”

Ruby says his company has extensively studied all of the steep slopes they will encounter while installing the ACP and have developed a best-in-class program for construction on those areas that goes beyond federal regulations and has been thoroughly evaluated by FERC, which confirmed its effectiveness.

“My company has built over 2,000 miles of underground pipeline through West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania,” he says. “How many pipelines has the Chesapeake Climate Action Network built?”

Updated May 3 at 4pm to correct a misquote.

Categories
News

Legal group challenges need for Dominion’s pipeline

local legal group will file a last-minute opinion that there isn’t enough market demand for a $6 billion pipeline. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will eventually approve or deny plans for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, is accepting comments for its draft environmental impact statement until April 6.

“I think the bottom line here is that Dominion is rushing forward with a project that has real questions about its public necessity,” says Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Greg Buppert. “FERC is also not looking at the issue.”

Dominion Energy and Duke Energy are the major companies backing the pipeline.

“Once this pipeline is in the ground, ratepayers will be stuck with it,” says Buppert. “Landowners will have lost their property to Dominion, and, at that point, it’s going to be too late to say this project wasn’t really needed. The problem is no one is looking; no regulators are asking this question right now.”

Attorneys with the SELC used electricity forecasting models for the next 10 years from PJM Interconnection, the group that controls the electricity grid throughout the state, to assess the current and future need for more electricity.

“The data from PJM is striking because that’s not our analysis, it’s analysis from the grid manager who has a vested interest in making sure the grid is working and understanding what the demand for electricity is going to be,” Buppert says. “It estimates projections that are a lot less than Dominion’s.”

For instance, SELC attorney Will Cleveland compares Dominion and PJM’s projections for 2027. While the former has the summer peak demand estimated at 24,016 megawatts, the latter is estimating it at 20,501 megawatts—a difference of 3,515 megawatts.

“To put that into perspective, the massive natural gas power plant that Dominion is currently building [in Greensville County] is about 1,600 megawatts in size,” he says, so the gap between the two forecasts is a little more than two additional power plants. “So, if PJM’s load forecasts are more accurate, which we think they are, that’s two new power plants Virginia doesn’t need.”

The plant in Greensville will cost state ratepayers about $1.5 billion.

Dan Genest, a spokesperson with Dominion Virginia Power, which will be a customer of the ACP, says there are several reasons for the discrepancy between his company’s forecasts and PJM’s.

“In its forecasting model, PJM fails to take into account several factors that drive up demand that are unique to Virginia,” he says, including data centers, major electric appliance saturation—or exactly how many refrigerators, stoves, water heaters and other appliances are in Virginia homes and how much energy they use—and a large presence of federal, state and local government facilities such as military bases and offices.

Genest also points to PJM’s treatment of solar energy facilities, which have a negative impact and reduce its overall load forecast. Though those at Dominion say renewable energy is important, it is often undependable, and they can’t factor it into their projections, Genest says.

“So at nighttime or when it is cloudy, the customer still expects his lights will work even though his solar system is not [working],” Genest says. “Let’s say a customer uses 1,000 kilowatts of electricity per month and he generates about 100 kilowatts per month from rooftop solar. We still need to have enough electricity to cover that customer’s full needs when his solar is not operating.”

In February 2015, ICF International, an independent consulting service based in Fairfax, released a study showing the economic impacts of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which projected a 165 percent increase in demand for natural gas between 2010 and 2035—in part because utilities are closing a number of coal-burning plants to make way for cleaner-burning natural gas.

Regional pipelines are already operating at full capacity, Dominion says, and though some expansions are planned, they are already fully subscribed in terms of customers.

But pipeline opponents still maintain there’s a better way to meet Virginia’s energy needs.

“For better or for worse, Dominion is doubling down on gas for the next 80 years,” says Buppert. With renewable energy systems gaining momentum and their prices continuing to drop, he says, “This is the wrong time to make a massive investment in gas.”

Categories
News

Bipartisan issue: Survey says majority of Virginians oppose pipelines

Though Dominion Virginia Power announced last week the hiring of a contractor to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, efforts to halt its construction, and that of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, have not ceased.

A new survey released September 21 by two anti-pipeline groups, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Virginia Organizing, shows that 55 percent of Virginians do not back Governor Terry McAuliffe’s support of the two pipelines, despite his belief they will create jobs, lower bills and help the environment.

The Cromer Group, a public opinion research group, interviewed 732 of the state’s registered voters for the survey.

The environmental groups note that 60 percent of female Republicans and 52 percent of female Democrats say McAuliffe has missed the mark.

Caroline Bray, a 20-year-old third-year student at UVA and the president of the university’s Climate Action Society, falls on the far left of that spectrum, she says. But she’s not sure it matters in this case.

Caroline pipeline-BL
Caroline Bray, a 20-year-old third-year student at UVA and the president of the university’s Climate Action Society, says the fight against the pipeline isn’t a partisan issue. Courtesy Caroline Bray

“One thing I’ve learned from traveling through the counties that the pipelines are supposed to cut across is that pipelines are not a partisan issue,” she says, adding that those bearing the brunt of the proposed pipelines live in rural, historically conservative areas. “They fight against them as hard as, if not more than, many liberals.”

A typical conservative pipeline opposer, she says, takes the stance that the proposed pipelines would infringe on their property rights, while liberals worry more about environmental concerns.

And one of those most recent concerns is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s newly released Mountain Valley Pipeline environmental impact statement, which determines that any negative ecological effects associated with it are “limited.”

“Having crossed through the countryside that the Mountain Valley Pipeline is supposed to traverse,” Bray says, “I find it shocking.”

This spring, she hit the road with the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition to travel the MVP’s proposed path from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to Blacksburg, stopping along the way to speak with people who would be impacted by its presence.

“This land is unprecedented for a 42-inch pipeline,” she says. Much of the area’s mountainous topography has a karst landscape that is conducive to sinkholes and erosion, and West Virginia’s Monroe County has more than 100 natural water springs, she says. “If the rocks below these springs are shifted by the pipeline, the source of drinking water for an entire community and wildlife down the watershed could be permanently threatened.”

She also mentions a Monroe family she met that has lived on their property for more than eight generations, since before the Declaration of Independence was signed.

“Their land is sacred to them, and altering it with this pipeline is unjust in every way,” Bray says.

Also making headlines in the realm of Virginia pipelines has been McAuliffe’s insistence that governance over those entities is strictly a federal issue and the state has no authority.

“He seems both confused and forgetful,” says the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition’s Rick Webb, who notes that McAuliffe has said the state will grant the natural gas pipelines their water permits, which are required, under the Clean Water Act if the companies backing them meet the statutory requirements.

On McAuliffe’s September 22 visit to Charlottesville, he was greeted outside Democratic campaign headquarters on the Downtown Mall by a group of sign-waving pipeline protesters who demanded he take action.

He told a Newsplex reporter that he has no say in the matter, but he supports the group’s right to protest.

“This is democracy, this is what America is all about,” he said. “You’ve got 10, 15 folks protesting, but remember, I’m the governor of 8.5 million people.”

In other news, the results of a study commissioned by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates released September 12 say the anticipated natural gas supply will meet the maximum demand from next year until 2030 without building a new pipeline.

“It’s an issue of competitive advantage rather than public need,” Webb says. “It’s mostly about Dominion seeking to displace Williams Transco as the major natural gas supply for the Southeast, while passing the cost of doing so along to its captive ratepayers.”

Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby says the report is full of flawed assumptions and misleading data.

“It’s an anti-pipeline report paid for by anti-pipeline groups, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone what it says,” he says. “The fact is, demand for natural gas in Virginia and North Carolina is growing significantly.”

Demand will grow by 165 percent over the next 20 years, he says, because coal is being replaced with cleaner-burning natural gas. And not only are new industries increasingly relying on natural gas, but the population itself is growing.

“There is no way existing pipelines or gas storage can meet that huge growth in demand,” Ruby says. “Existing pipelines in the region are constrained and operating at full capacity. Even planned expansions of those pipelines are fully subscribed.”

In Hampton Roads, he says pipelines are so constrained that the natural gas service is “curtailed” for large industrial customers during high-demand periods in the winter. In North Carolina, he adds, one pipeline serves the entire state, and because it’s located in the western half, entire communities in eastern North Carolina have limited to no access to the supply.

“The region’s existing pipelines cannot address these challenges,” says Ruby. “New infrastructure is required. That’s why we’re proposing to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.”

Categories
News

2,200 miles: Interstate natural gas pipelines already here

Locally, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline has amassed intense opposition since Dominion Energy formally announced its project plans in September 2014. What some challengers may not know, however, is that more than 2,000 miles of pipelines have sliced through Virginia for several decades, sparking little to no debate.

“I think the fact that most people are unaware of the vast network of existing pipelines that are operating in our communities today says a couple of things,” says Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby, who notes that these pipelines go unnoticed because they operate safely and coexist peacefully with their environments.

Four Williams Transco natural gas transmission pipelines in the same right of way run under Lake Monticello in Fluvanna. Two are 30 inches in width, one is 36 inches and the largest is 42 inches—the proposed width of the ACP.

While only about 1,000 of 10,000 miles of the Transco pipeline—built in the early 1950s—run through Virginia on their way from Texas to New York, the first bout of natural gas pumped through the line was delivered to Danville, according to spokesperson Chris Stockton. About a quarter of all natural gas consumed in Virginia goes through the Transco.

“It really is out of sight, out of mind,”  Stockton says.

Like the Transco pipeline, the multi-billion-dollar, 550-mile ACP will also run entirely underground, according to Ruby. As does the 20-inch Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline—gathering gas in the Gulf of New Mexico and transporting it to New York—that runs through White Hall Vineyards in Crozet.

Representatives from the vineyard declined to comment on the effect the pipeline has had on their operation.

“There’s no indication that any of the 2,200 miles of existing pipelines in Virginia have inhibited the development or growth or sustainability of these communities,” says Ruby. “In fact, the opposite has been the case.”

Farmers, he says, grow crops “right on top” of the pipelines, which lay under pastureland and woodland meadows and go fairly unnoticed, except for their vertical, yellow-tipped markers.

Calling Nelson County the “Napa Valley of Virginia,” Ruby points out that the wine mecca in California is one of the most successful tourist regions in the country and that 280 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines run between Napa and Sonoma valleys.

“Those pipelines have not inhibited the tourism industry, residential growth, resort businesses or the wine industry,” he says, and he believes the ACP will have the same effect in Virginia, where there are already more than two and a half times the miles of pipeline—some passing through residential and commercial areas—than interstate highway.

Though the ACP will serve multiple public utilities and what Dominion calls “their urgent energy needs” in Virginia and North Carolina, some opponents say the number of existing pipelines makes for an absence of compelling need for another.

“One of the major objections to the proposed ACP is that any need for this pipeline does not rise to the level that justifies harm to our best remaining wild landscape, intrusion into public conservation lands and state-sanctioned violation of private property rights,” says Rick Webb, the coordinator for the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s determination of project need, he says, is only based on evidence that contracts for natural gas have been secured. FERC will ultimately approve or deny the project.

“We contend that this is an insufficient standard,” Webb says. “Particularly when, as in this case, the large majority of the gas is contracted to subsidiaries or affiliates of the ACP developers.”

Categories
News

Closer to home: Could pipeline run through Albemarle?

In May, members of a Wintergreen nonprofit organization submitted four requests to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reroute the Atlantic Coast Pipeline out of their town. One of their ideas? Run it through Albemarle County, instead.

The 600-mile, 42-inch natural gas line is currently proposed to slice through the outskirts of the Wintergreen community on its way from Lyndhurst to an area just north of Farmville. The group, called Friends of Wintergreen, has attempted to get around Dominion by submitting the new route proposals directly to FERC, which will ultimately rule on whether the pipeline will be approved and where it will run.

Friends of Wintergreen has publicly stated that it does not oppose the ACP, generally. “Their primary purpose is to try to get it away from their businesses in the Wintergreen community,” says Kirk Bowers, the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club’s pipelines campaign manager.

“Dominion’s proposed route will cut through the main street of one of Virginia’s largest tourism [areas], shutting down two new hotel developments and killing hundreds of new planned tourism jobs,” says Jonathan Ansell, chairman of Friends of Wintergreen. “There are examples of better and possible alternatives,” he says, such as running a pipeline alongside an existing one.

PIPELINE MAP
Friends of Wintergreen has proposed a new Atlantic Coast Pipeline route that would send it through Albemarle County.

The proposed route would divert the pipeline through Fluvanna and then North Garden, instead of through Wintergreen, but Ansell says the entire route, including what Friends of Wintergreen has drafted to run through Nelson County, would be located in existing rights of way, including railroads, highways and electric transmission lines, causing less damage than the route proposed by Dominion, according to Ansell.

“It’s standard operating procedure for Dominion to dismiss any solutions other than their own,” Ansell says. “In our case, they claim our routes are unbuildable for land use [or] constructability reasons. Our engineers and environmental teams, who have closely evaluated their claims, disagree.”

But Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby says the construction challenges, as well as laws protecting federally managed land, make the nonprofit’s requests infeasible.

“We’ve looked very carefully at each of these routes and we’ve given them the careful consideration that they deserve,” Ruby says. “They’re well-intentioned, but it does not appear that all of the various factors that you have to weigh when developing a proposed route were carefully considered.”

He says Dominion has made more than 300 adjustments to the proposed pipeline’s path to limit impacts on the environment, individual landowners and cultural and historic resources.

While the decision is in FERC’s hand, the commission does not have a deadline to which it must respond to Friends of Wintergreen, according to Ansell.

“Fortunately for Albemarle, we’re already well-organized here,” says Bowers, who nods to local pipeline-opposing groups, such as 350.org, Appalachian Voices and Appalachian Mountain Advocates. He calls Friends of Wintergreen’s plan to locate the ACP in Albemarle, “just a pipe dream.”

Bowers says no matter where the pipeline is located it will contribute significantly to climate change across the state.

There are currently 49.7 million tons of carbon dioxide in Virginia, according to measurements taken from 177 stationary points by the Sierra Club, which calculated that the 300-foot Mountain Valley Pipeline—slated to run from northwestern West Virginia in Bradshaw to Pittsylvania County in southern Virginia—and ACP, if approved, would contribute another 95 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

“So, if you are concerned about climate change and the heating effect,” Bowers says, “it is tremendous when you triple the amount of greenhouse gases you put into the atmosphere.”

Additionally, Ansell says Virginians need to understand that the approval of the ACP will prolong dependence on fracking and fossil fuels by a generation.

“This is especially troubling as the $45 billion energy company was recently ranked as one of the lowest users of renewable energy in America,” Ansell says, referring to a recent benchmark by Clean Edge—a group of clean energy researchers in Portland and San Francisco—which ranked Dominion dead last out of the top 30 U.S. investor-owned utilities in the category of incremental energy efficiency.

“Dominion is the largest corporate contributor to politicians in the commonwealth, effectively immunizing itself from contrary political pressure,” he says. “When’s the last time you heard a politician publicly criticize Dominion for being irresponsible?”

Updated July 13 at 10:19am to clarify that the pipeline’s proposed route runs through the outskirts of the Wintergreen community and not through Wintergreen Resort. It also stops just north of Farmville.