If the pipeline is approved, Richard Averitt will be hit on two fronts—his residential property and a commercial lot he bought with the dream to build a $35 million five-star boutique resort. Photo by Sanjay Suchak
Though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the Atlantic Coast Pipeline October 13, those opposing the $6 billion and 600-mile gas fracking project say they’re not going down without a fight.
“It’s not over by any means,” says Kirk Bowers, a program coordinator with the local chapter of the Sierra Club. Though he’s not showing his hand, he says his organization recently changed its policy against participating in civil disobedience and training sessions have been popping up across the commonwealth.
FERC also just approved the Mountain Valley Pipeline in southwest Virginia, where Bowers says opponents have blocked roads with their bodies, vehicles and gates to prevent surveyors from entering their properties.
In the case of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, he says environmental groups and their attorneys have 30 days to file appeals. And they will.
Dominion Energy sent out a press release late Friday night that the ACP had been issued a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from FERC—the most significant milestone for the project yet, it said.
“Our public utility customers are depending on this infrastructure to generate cleaner electricity, heat homes and power local businesses,” says Leslie Hartz, Dominion’s vice president of engineering and construction, who says the project will result in lower energy costs and a cleaner environment, because the ACP will replace coal-burning power plants.
FERC chair Cheryl LaFleur dissented in the approval, and said the project isn’t in the public’s best interest, but noted that utility customers in Virginia and North Carolina have already subscribed to 90 percent of the pipeline’s natural gas capacity.
To proceed with construction, Dominion still needs water permits from the states in which the pipeline will run—West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.
In West Virginia, where Dominion first asked the Department of Environmental Quality for the water permit, which it was granted, legal group Appalachian Mountain Advocates filed suit—and won—this summer. Now, the energy giant has to go back to the drawing board, according to Bowers, who says Virginia water permit hearings are slated to take place in Richmond in December.
Last week, the Sierra Club filed an appeal with the State Corporation Commission, Bowers says, because Dominion has allegedly contracted the ACP’s gas to its own affiliates without the SCC’s permission, which is required in Virginia.
In early September, anti-pipeline group Bold Alliance filed a property rights lawsuit against FERC, alleging the abuse of eminent domain for private gain.
Dominion has maintained it would only use eminent domain as a last resort. It also asserts that the ACP has undergone 300 route adjustments and one of the most thorough environmental reviews for a project of its scope.
“This unprecedented scrutiny should give assurance to all communities that their voices have been heard and that the project will be built in a way that protects public safety and the environment,” Hartz says.
Nelson County resident and affected landowner Richard Averitt is among 50 plaintiffs in the Bold Alliance suit.
“Hundreds of landowners have stood strong and have refused to negotiate with the pipeline companies,” he says. “We have vowed to fight to protect and defend what is constitutionally ours, and we will win.”
If the pipeline is approved, Richard Averitt will be hit on two fronts—his residential property and a commercial lot he bought with the dream to build a $35 million five-star boutique resort. Photo by Sanjay Suchak
Take a short drive through Nelson County and you’d need all your fingers and toes to count the number of deep blue signs with lambasting white block letters that tout the words “NO PIPELINE.”
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, proposed in September 2014 to run through bucolic Nelson on its way from West Virginia to North Carolina, has amassed intense opposition by environmentalists, property rights enthusiasts and landowners who cringe at the idea of the 42-inch-wide fracked gas pipeline slicing through their backyards.
Though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will eventually approve or deny the $6 billion project, has echoed major owners Dominion Energy and Duke Energy in saying the 600-mile pipeline will have a limited impact, it is undisputed that the ACP will change the lay of the land along its route—disputably forever.
Construction is anticipated to begin at the end of the year, with the pipeline in service by the end of 2019.
Since 2005, Richard Averitt has lived with his family—including his wife, two children, parents, sister, sister-in-law and their respective families—on four parcels that span 135 acres in Nelson. Sitting on a red bench on the porch of his Nellysford home, he motions to the heavily wooded area behind his abode.
“If [the pipeline] does blow up, our house is in the incineration zone, which means everything you see would be turned to splinters or dust. It would kill all of us if we were here. It would obliterate this house,” says Averitt. “But even if it doesn’t ever blow up, is it going to leak and taint our well water and will we be drinking it without knowing? Is it going to pollute our land? Will I walk out of my front door every day for the rest of my life and look at the way they clear-cut all the trees and irreparably damaged the place that we built as our family homestead? I think I would be too angry and too bitter. I think I’m going to have to reimagine my life if we lose. It’s brutal.”
So why keep fighting, when, historically speaking, those protesting pipelines have had little chance of prevailing?
“I don’t have a plan B,” says Averitt. “I expected to live out my life right here.”
If the pipeline is approved, Richard Averitt will be hit on two fronts—his residential property and a commercial lot he bought with the dream to build a $35 million five-star boutique resort. Photo by Sanjay Suchak
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, if approved, won’t actually touch his residential property. The proposed route runs through his sister’s neighboring parcel and continues to travel into the wilderness about 250 yards from where he sits on his porch.
In order to build it, the pipeline’s construction crew—Spring Ridge Constructors, LLC—will bulldoze a 125-foot-wide path along its entire course before digging a trench to lay the pipe. Because of the steep mountainous terrain behind Averitt’s home, which includes a 15-foot-wide ridge that drops off at 35 degrees on both sides, the crew will need to cut away at the hill and level the area until they have a flat enough work space. In total, they will remove mountain and ridgetops for 38 miles of the pipeline’s proposed route.
But Dominion has always maintained that after it removes the soil and constructs the pipeline, it’ll put the dirt back.
“What does ‘putting it back mean?’” Averitt asks. “They say, ‘We’re required to put it back.’ How? If you just pile all that dirt back on, first off, it doesn’t look like what it used to look like. And secondly, even if you did, the first time it rains, what’s going to happen? It’s just going to wash down.” He adds, “The process of installing the pipeline is so ungodly destructive to someone’s land.”
And once Dominion does purchase an easement from a landowner, the power giant will have permanent ownership and access to it, meaning it can access the easement whenever it pleases.
For that reason—and many others—Averitt says landowners along the route should have a say in whether FERC gives the greenlight to the project. But when Dominion sent a letter to his sister, Dawn Averitt, in February 2015, the company said it wanted to perform a precondemnation survey of her land, and if she didn’t give her approval, they would take her to court.
Throughout the entire process, Dominion has said it will only use eminent domain as a last resort.
“I would argue, with absolute conviction, that they used eminent domain since the very first communication,” Averitt says. “They stepped up and said we want to come to your land for a precondemnation survey to decide if we will condemn your land—or take your land. They basically cocked the gun with the very first communication. …So anything Dominion says about this idea that they worked with landowners is garbage.”
Averitt also received a letter the same week as his sister. This one, though, was regarding 100 acres of commercial property he bought four years ago.
Much to his dismay, Dominion said it wanted to run its pipeline through that, too.
What the frack?
When two sides are as passionate about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline as those who love it and those who loathe it, a lot gets lost in translation. Here’s how Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby and Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Greg Buppert answer the same five questions.
Is there a need for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline?
Aaron Ruby (above left): Public utilities in Virginia and North Carolina are depending on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to generate cleaner electricity, provide home heating for a growing population and power new industries like manufacturing. Our region’s existing pipelines are fully tapped. They cannot support a growing economy or the transition to cleaner energy. Pipelines in Hampton Roads, for example, were stretched so thin in recent winters that public utilities had to shut off service to more than 100 industrial facilities just to keep homes warm and hospitals running.
Greg Buppert (above right): No. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline will deliver natural gas to power plants. However, consistent with national trends, more energy-efficient buildings and appliances in Virginia mean the economy can grow without building new power plants. If Virginia doesn’t need new power plants, then we don’t need a new pipeline.
What other options exist?
AR: Because our region’s existing pipelines are fully tapped, public utilities in Virginia and North Carolina decided in 2014 that they needed new pipeline infrastructure to meet the growing needs of their customers. After exploring numerous options from multiple pipeline developers, they chose the Atlantic Coast Pipeline as the most cost-effective option for their customers.
GB: Studies confirm that existing pipelines have space to move gas to Virginia and North Carolina. But Dominion won’t reap the same profits if it uses existing pipelines instead of building its own. FERC—the federal agency charged with reviewing natural gas pipeline projects—has not meaningfully evaluated whether existing pipelines are a less costly, less destructive alternative to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
Will the Atlantic Coast Pipeline be safe?
AR: Public safety is our top priority, and we’re taking every precaution to make sure the pipeline operates safely. Before the pipeline goes into service, we will inspect every weld with X-ray equipment and pressure test the entire pipeline with water to make sure it’s totally secure. Once in service, we will monitor the pipeline 24 hours a day, seven days a week from our gas control center, where operators can remotely shut off individual sections and take immediate action if they find any abnormal conditions. The pipeline will be regularly monitored by aerial and foot patrols, and the interior will be periodically inspected with robotic devices that will allow us to find and fix any damage before it’s a risk to public safety. These overlapping layers of protection are the reason underground natural gas pipelines are the safest form of energy transportation in the U.S.
GB: Landowners all along the route are rightly concerned about pipeline safety. When a high-pressure transmission pipe ruptures, it can produce an intense, large fireball beyond a local fire department’s ability to control. Dominion’s decision to go through the steep, landslide prone mountains of western Virginia only exacerbates these concerns.
Do the majority of people support or oppose the Atlantic Coast Pipeline?
AR: There are many diverse views about the pipeline, but it’s clear the majority of Virginians support the project and want to see it built. Most Virginians want cleaner electricity, lower energy costs and a growing economy, and they understand that it takes new infrastructure to make that possible. That’s why more than 25 local governments along the route have supported the project, and why public opinion polls consistently show 2-to-1 support among all Virginians.
GB: Opposition to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline continues to grow as citizens grasp the corporate self-dealing driving this project. The McAuliffe administration embraced the project in 2014 without having all the information needed to understand its environmental damage and its cost to utility customers. It’s now up to the governor and DEQ to ensure that Virginians are protected from this unnecessary project.
What will be its biggest effect?
AR: First and foremost, this pipeline is going to provide cleaner electricity and affordable home heating to millions of Virginians. Because of our company’s transition from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas and the billions of dollars we’re investing in new solar projects, our customers could see their carbon footprint shrink by 25 percent over the next eight years. We are making historic progress in reducing our environmental footprint, and it’s projects like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline that make it possible.
GB: Renewable energy is poised to transform how we get and distribute energy in Virginia. The cost of solar technologies drops each year, unlike coal and gas, and we are a few years away from affordable battery storage systems. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a $6 billion investment in gas that will undermine Virginia’s transition to clean renewable energy, possibly for decades.
In fall 2013, Averitt, along with his father and wife, bought the large plot of land across from Bold Rock Hard Cider in Nelson County for a passion project. On the land that runs from Spruce Creek, down to Horizons Village and back, they hoped to build a five-star boutique resort similar to Big Sur’s Post Ranch Inn or Meadowood in Napa Valley. The $35 million project was to be called Spruce Creek Resort and Market.
Internationally renowned for its ability to combine built and natural landscapes, Charlottesville-headquared architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz was in on the plan, too.
“We hired them because that was such a perfect fit for what we wanted to do,” Averitt says. “We wanted to build a place that felt like it had always been there. To do that in real estate development is hard. You can’t go in and bulldoze and start from scratch.”
The team configured a design plan and began doing economic estimates and recruiting investors. When the pipeline notice showed up in the mail, Averitt says he didn’t think Dominion would actually choose that route, and he decided to proceed with his resort plans. They applied for and received special-use permits from Nelson County, and the next step, he says, was to spend between $1 million and $2 million on true engineering, such as stormwater runoff and landscaping plans.
“All the engineers and investors and other people we were going to work with said we can’t put a couple million dollars into something that could be eviscerated by the pipeline,” Averitt says. “So we’ve been on hold ever since—and fighting like hell.”
Dominion, however, has said the Atlantic Coast Pipeline won’t affect Averitt’s plans to build a secluded boutique resort in the wilderness. And FERC agrees.
“They said they believe the two things can coexist,” Averitt says. “That we can build our dream project on this land after they clear-cut five and a half acres, level the ground with thousands of trees gone and reshape the land. That it’s still then compatible with a boutique five-star resort is, of course, absurd.”
The Averitts are currently working with appraisers and eminent domain counsel for the worst-case scenario of loss of property value.
“But value is not what we want to fight about,” Averitt says. “We believe this is an absolute unconstitutional taking and abuse of eminent domain.”
To take the value of somebody’s land from a private company—in his case Rockfish Valley Investments LLC—and give it to another private shareholder-owned corporation—Dominion—is not what eminent domain was designed for, according to Averitt. It was designed for the government to transfer land value or assets in a case where the public needs it for public use.
“Eminent domain is an extreme power, and with it comes extreme responsibility to ensure that land is never taken from a landowner unless the public needs the land and there is no other practical means to meet the need,” he says, and adds that this has recently been abused by claims that the public “benefits” of the pipeline, like lower energy bills or creating jobs or new tax revenue, are good enough reasons.
The line should be drawn any time the power of the state is used to take from any individual or business and give the value of the taking to another individual or business, he says.
“So any time you transfer that asset to anything other than a city, county, state or federal government entity, in my opinion, it’s a violation of the constitution,” Averitt says. “And we’re going to sue over that.”
In a blue and tan plaid button-down shirt and jeans, Averitt jumps in his gold Toyota 4Runner with a yellow “don’t tread on my property rights” bumper sticker on the back, with the same coiled black snake featured on the historic Gadsden flag. With one hand on the wheel, as the vehicle bounces its way down rocky roads to his commercial property, Averitt uses his other hand to trace the pipeline’s route with his index finger across brightly illustrated site plans.
If approved, the ACP will traverse Spruce Creek, the waterbody Averitt would like to name the resort after, and steamroll through plans he’s made for interconnected tree houses and a luxury spa.
Averitt says his project would create more than three times the permanent jobs of the entire 600-mile pipeline. Although Dominion projects that the ACP will create 17,000 jobs, Averitt says that number is inflated, with some of those jobs being for pipeline contractors from Texas, Oklahoma and West Virginia.
“They’re going to come in, they’re going to build along a whole bunch of areas for about 18 months if Dominion’s right, and then they’re going to go away and there’s no more than 40 permanent jobs on the entire 600-mile route,” he says. Spruce Creek Resort and Market would have about 125 permanent jobs plus additional seasonal opportunities for employment.
Dominion, however, projects more than 2,000 permanent operational jobs. In 2014, public utilities in Virginia and North Carolina decided a new pipeline was needed to meet customer demands. They chose Dominion and Duke Energy’s proposed ACP as the most cost-effective option, which will replace coal plants with cleaner burning natural gas and provide electricity and heating to “millions” of homes, says Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby, who has been defending it ever since.
Almost immediately, opposition emerged from people who say the natural gas industry is declining due to cleaner methods. Some studies show that the state’s 2,200 miles of existing pipelines have the capacity to move more gas to Virginia and North Carolina, according to Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Greg Buppert.
And while pipeline opponents argue that their rights of way could be used to house the ACP, thus nixing the need for a new route, Ruby says it doesn’t quite work that way.
Back in Nelson County, Averitt stops the 4Runner and crunches his way to the creek. He stands between two trees marked with orange ties that signal the route for the pipeline. His face is hard.
“We’re going to fight. We’re in this all the way to the end, and we’ll go to the Supreme Court if we can find standing and can’t win before that,” he says. “They won’t cut a tree down on our property before they take us away in handcuffs, because at some point, you have to say, as a citizen, ‘I won’t stand for this.’ This is our Boston Tea Party.”
Neighborhood watch
Just a few miles away in the Fortune’s Point neighborhood at the top of Wintergreen, David and Nancy Schwiesow are fighting their own battle.
“It’s beautiful here—peaceful, quiet,” says David as he sits on the ledge of his living room fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows reveal expansive mountain views that look as though they were peeled off a canvas. “Quality of life is pretty close to perfect here.”
But there’s a chance it won’t be for long, he says, if Dominion runs the Atlantic Coast Pipeline through four of the six parcels in Fortune’s Point.
The company plans to clear a 300-foot-wide-by-300-foot-long space directly across from Wintergreen’s only entrance. There, they will drill about 5,000 feet through the mountain, which will go under the Blue Ridge Parkway and into Augusta County, according to the Schwiesows.
In Fortune’s Point, the ACP’s proposed route slices through the center of the first and second parcels, narrowly misses the Schwiesow’s cul-de-sac and curves back through two of their neighbors’ properties—one of them being Friends of Wintergreen Chairman Jonathan Ansell.
FOW is a citizen group that doesn’t oppose the ACP, but has proposed four routes members say will be much less destructive.
David, a FOW founder, drives along the pipeline’s route, pointing out that parcels one and two will practically be destroyed, and their owners have said they will no longer be able to build on them. He pauses to admire three neighborhood deer before driving to the entrance of Ansell’s home—one of the 10 “most valuable properties in Nelson,” David says.
Ansell’s home is for sale, but no one’s biting, David says.
“People aren’t buying houses that are going near the pipeline,” says Nancy, who has worked in real estate for 35 years. “If I had a client that was considering house A and house B, with everything else being equal, they’re not going to buy a house that’s near the pipeline.”
Adds David, “If we hadn’t built here, we wouldn’t build here.”
“Not in our wildest dreams,” says his wife.
Nancy and David Schwiesow live in Wintergreen’s Fortune’s Point neighborhood, where four of six parcels could be sliced by the ACP. It could also cross the resort’s single entrance, leaving them trapped if the pipeline blows. Photo by Sanjay Suchak
One of the main concerns for the Schwiesows is safety. Because the pipeline, if approved, will pass directly across the sole entrance and exit to the resort. During peak times, there are 10,000 people on the mountain, which would create a potentially catastrophic safety risk if an explosion or gas leak occurs, they say. Emergency medical providers wouldn’t be able to reach them.
The blast zone—or the potential impact radius—for the 42-inch pipeline is 1,100 feet on either side.
“Imagine 1,100 feet up the mountain,” David says. “A solid wall of fire. …You can’t stop it. We’ll be trapped up here. It would literally be the single biggest catastrophe in Virginia’s history.”
A 20-inch gas transmission line exploded in Sissonville, West Virginia, in December 2012, shooting flames almost 100 feet into the air, destroying four residences, damaging five others and obliterating an 800-foot section of Interstate 77.
“The fire melted the interstate and it looked like lava, just boiling,” said Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper to MetroNews on the accident’s one-year anniversary.
“We have never had anything like that on any of our pipelines,” says Ruby, whose company has built more than 15,000 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines in the country. “A catastrophic failure of that nature is extremely rare.”
From 1994-2013 in the U.S., the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s pipeline data records show 855 serious incidents with gas distribution and transmission, which resulted in 319 fatalities, 1,254 injuries and more than a $1 billion in property damage.
Risks and benefits
It’s been 48 years since 124 people were killed in Nelson County during Hurricane Camille. The most impacted area at the time was Davis Creek, on the southern end of Roberts Mountain. Now the ridge is full of debris flow from the natural disaster and other subsequent landslides. Dominion would like to run its pipeline through there, too.
Ernie Reed, the president of environmental group Wild Virginia and an active member of Friends of Nelson, lives near the foot of Roberts Mountain and has been vocal through the years-long fight against the ACP.
The mountain, near the 166th mile of the proposed route, is one of the tallest peaks in the area, a place where environmental groups have studied the potential effects of the pipeline. It’s an extremely narrow ridge, and he says between 20 and 60 feet of mountaintop will need to be decapitated to make a surface flat enough for the pipeline.
“You can imagine the number of steep slopes and waterbody crossings and the potential for massive erosion,” Reed says, adding that the site is already sensitive from the havoc wreaked by Camille.
He compares this to a recent example of Hurricane Harvey’s effect on Houston, Texas. There, the water runs straight to the roads.
“Well, if you have a 10-foot ditch that’s been filled in with a pipeline and it crosses the steepest areas across the Allegheny Mountains, the Allegheny Plateau, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Reeds Gap, the Blue Ridge Parkway and then back down through here all the way to the James River, all that water will just scour out that entire pipeline route,” Reed says. “And what’s in the middle of that pipeline route is a natural gas pipeline, so you look at what damage happened in Nelson County from Hurricane Camille and add something that’s flammable and toxic on top of that, and this is a recipe for disaster at least the size of what’s going on in Houston, probably even worse.”
Birds chirp and bugs buzz as Reed sits on the porch of his remote log cabin in Nelson County. He says his 120-acre slice of wilderness was compromised by one of the pipeline’s previously proposed paths, but because more than 300 route adjustments have been made, his land is no longer directly affected. He is, however, still in the blast zone.
But the man who has done conservation work for 30 years says his fight is about more than that.
“My interest is in protecting the national forests and, of course, those belong to everybody,” Reed says. “They provide resource values and amenities you just can’t get anywhere else.”
Because the ACP is proposed in a national forest, its approval will require 14 amendments of existing plan standards that impact soil, wetlands, old growth, the Appalachian Trail and endangered species. The pipeline would destroy 214 acres of national forests and eliminate almost 5,000 acres of interior forest habitat, according to Wild Virginia. It would also cross about two and a half miles of porous and unstable karst areas on U.S. Forest Service land.
Reed says bisecting one of the most contiguous areas of the George Washington National Forest with a 125-foot clear-cut required for the pipeline is something that can’t be mitigated. The forest will never be able to repair itself.
“The idea that the national forest could be destroyed is a death by 1,000 cuts,” he says. “You take one massive cut right through the middle of it and the forest will never be the same, and will never recover to any extent in our lifetime and maybe ever.”
FERC has also said that the ACP could negatively impact seven endangered species along the route: the Indiana bat, northern long-eared bat, Roanoke logperch, Madison Cave isopod, clubshell mussel, running buffalo clover and small whorled pogonia.
Adds Reed, “It’s unfathomable that federal agencies and state agencies would consider these types of impacts insignificant.”
Plenty of people have voiced support for the project, including Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, but environmentalist Reed, in his Wild Virginia T-shirt, says anyone who looks at it objectively can see that “it’s the wrong thing at the wrong place at the wrong time, and no good can come from it.”
“The number of people that support the pipeline are totally limited to the people who benefit either financially or ideologically from it,” Reed says. “I have not met anybody in three years that, when they understand the circumstances, doesn’t question it.”
But lifelong Nelson resident and former chairman of the Nelson County Chamber of Commerce Carlton Ballowe, who lives in Faber on one of the ACP’s previously proposed routes, doesn’t fit that bill.
He supports the pipeline because it’ll bring revenue to the county, spur statewide economic development and make the country less dependent on foreign sources of energy, he says.
“When it was going across my property, I considered it a win for everybody but me,” Ballowe says. “I wouldn’t be so selfish as to deny the greater good in my own self interest.”
And while local pipeline opponents may be the vocal majority, Ballowe says some ACP champions in the community are afraid to express their opinions.
“I know one [business owner] that was supportive of the pipeline and some [opponents] found out that he was and they worked very hard to try to negatively impact his business just because of his support for the pipeline,” Ballowe says.
Dominion’s Ruby says a number of people along the route support the project, but aren’t comfortable speaking to the media after being subjected to hostility.
“There is a concerted effort by pipeline opponents to harass and intimidate people in the community who speak out in favor of the pipeline,” he says. “Supporters have had anti-pipeline signs posted on their property. They’ve been accosted at the grocery store and at their places of business.”
One group of pipeline opponents, however, wants to focus on the positive.
“A lot of folks don’t want to get drawn into protesting, or get wound up about things or be frustrated with Dominion,” says Cville Rising co-founder Lee White, whose environmental group formed at the end of last year. “Our focus is to try to have more of a positive, forward-looking perspective.”
In an anti-pipeline mission called Walking the Line, about 30 protesters hiked 150 miles of the ACP’s proposed route through Virginia. Courtesy Lee White
For 16 days and 150 miles, a core group of about five people organized by White hiked the ACP’s proposed route from Highland County through Bath, Augusta and Nelson counties, eventually ending at the site of what could be the pipeline’s highly controversial compressor station in Buckingham County. For this outing, called Walking the Line, hikers joined and dropped off along the way, with about 30 pipeline opponents marching together at one point.
“The vision was that of a celebratory, peaceful walk of resistance, to share the stories of the communities and the beauty of the landscape that would be impacted,” White says, and adds that one of the most powerful moments was trudging up the Deerfield Valley, located between Bath and Augusta counties, for three days, walking 10 miles a day.
“When you walk up those mountains, you can’t even comprehend how they could physically build these pipelines,” White says. The proposed ACP will swing across Deerfield Valley for 30 miles. “That was one of the most impactful parts because you get a good sense of how the valley will be decimated. There will be nothing there.”
The group had a theme song along the way, an old bluegrass tune called “Sow It on the Mountain”:
“Sow it on the mountain / reap it in the valley / because you’re gonna reap just what you sow.
If you’ve been a gambler / you’d better quit your gambling / ’cause you’re gonna reap just what you sow.
If you’ve been a tattler / you’d better quit your tattling / ’cause you’re gonna reap just what you sow.
If you’ve been a liar / you better quit your lying / ’cause you’re gonna reap just what you sow.”
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released its final environmental impact statement for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline July 21, and it said the proposed 600-mile, $5.5 billion natural gas pipeline will have a “less than significant” impact on the environment.
“The [final environmental impact statement] paints a terrifying picture of a bleak future,” says Ernie Reed, the president of anti-pipeline group Friends of Nelson.
According to Reed, the ACP will eliminate almost 5,000 acres of interior forest habitat and destroy 200 acres of national forests and nearly 2,000 waterbody crossings along its path from West Virginia to North Carolina. “And all this to give Dominion and Duke Energy enough gas to burn our way into hell,” he adds.
Dominion Energy and Duke Energy are the major companies backing the ACP.
Also on July 21, the U.S. Forest Service released a draft of the record of decision, which said the ACP “can be implemented with limited adverse impacts,” and, in its final form, will authorize the use and occupancy of National Forest System land for the ACP through the George Washington and Monongahela national forests.
Environmentalists allege that the documents fail to depict the pipeline’s true effects, and that some biological evaluations, road analyses and consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are incomplete.
“It is interesting that this decision was made by the regional foresters in offices hundreds of miles away from these forests,” says Reed. “No one who has stepped foot in these forests could ever come to such a delusional conclusion.”
FERC found that the ACP could negatively impact seven endangered species: the Indiana bat, northern long-eared bat, Roanoke logperch, Madison Cave isopod, clubshell mussel, running buffalo clover and small whorled pogonia.
“It is outrageous that the Forest Service would sign off on a scheme like this with the full knowledge that it will harm endangered species,” says Misty Boos, executive director of environmental group Wild Virginia, which has also been vocal in its opposition to the pipeline.
She says FERC’s final environmental impact statement and the Forest Service’s record of decisions “make it clear that we cannot rely on the federal government to protect our forests and drinking water,” and that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has the authority to reverse the two groups’ decisions.
“All eyes are on the DEQ in the coming weeks,” Boos says. “They must do what the feds have not and choose our safety over private profits.”
Wild Virginia will submit a formal objection to the draft record of decision, and “litigation is certain to follow,” according to a press release.
Dominion continues to assert that its pipeline will be safe for all.
“Over the last three years, we’ve taken unprecedented steps to protect environmental resources and minimize impacts on landowners,” says Leslie Hartz, Dominion Energy’s vice president of engineering and construction. She says her team has made more than 300 route adjustments to avoid environmentally sensitive areas. “In many areas of the project, we’ve adopted some of the most protective construction methods that have ever been used by the industry.”
Construction on the pipeline could begin by the end of the year, according to Dominion.
Drainage from a mountain named Big Ridge will affect two of the state’s remaining native brook trout streams, Townsend Draft and Erwin Draft. Photo courtesy of Rick Webb
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?”
Greg Buppert, along with other attorneys at the Southern Environmental Law
Center, questions the public necessity for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Amy Jackson
A 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.”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello, who opposes the pipeline, was at the fundraiser where protesters temporarily took the stage. Photo by Jen Fariello
Gubernatorial candidates Ralph Northam and Tom Perriello and three lieutenant governor hopefuls were in town over the weekend for the Charlottesville Democratic Party’s 17th annual pasta supper and auction. New on this year’s menu was an Atlantic Coast Pipeline protest in which seven sign-carrying UVA students took the stage to demand that the candidates oppose the $6 billion project.
Perriello has been vocal about his opposition to the pipeline, while Northam has been silent on the issue, but has reportedly accepted more than $97,000 from Dominion Energy, a major company backing the pipeline, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
First-year Clara Camber, a member of the university’s Climate Action Society, which organized the protest, filmed the protest from the crowd.
“When the young women demanded resistance from Democratic candidates to pipelines that threaten Virginia, they were grabbed and pushed by local party leaders,” Camber says. “The moderator led the crowd in chanting, ‘Leave the stage!’ while others shouted back, ‘Let them speak!’ and ‘They deserve to be heard.’”
Protesting the fundraiser was a strategic move, she adds.
“People might expect a protest in a Republican fundraising event, but, honestly, I think that going to the Democratic party was [better] because we have a better shot with them,” she says. “They are people who are already a lot closer to where I align my views.”
The girls were asked several times by the party’s co-chairs to leave the stage and they refused, says Erin Monaghan, the local Democratic party’s communications representative. “Nothing like this kind of action has ever been part of what is considered a social event before.”
But Camber says her group isn’t discouraged.
“We’ll be back,” she says. “As youth in our community, we feel surprisingly neglected. We’re supposed to be in this progressive party and we’re called upon to knock on doors and help them out, but they don’t really want to listen to us.”
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 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.”
Food & Drink Farm to Feast dinner
Sunday, September 11
Enjoy a family-style meal of locally sourced food at Blenheim Vineyards’ Farm to Feast benefit dinner, which supports Local Food Hub and Farm Aid. In addition to dinner prepared by acclaimed chefs, there will be passed canapés, a teepee “cocktail” lounge and live music from Small Town Rodeo. $125, 5- 9pm. Blenheim Vineyards, 31 Blenheim Farm. bleinheimvineyards.com
Nonprofit Cheers for Charity
Through September
Wild Virginia and Starr Hill Brewery are partnering for the Cheers for Charity fundraiser. One dollar for every pint of beer sold at the Starr Hill Tap Room this month will go to Wild Virginia, which works to protect our state’s national forests and stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Starr Hill Brewery, 5391 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. 823-5671.
Health & Wellness Be Bold 5K trail race
Saturday, September 10
Enjoy panoramic mountain views during this flat-course race, registration for which includes a commemorative tasting glass and post-race party with cider samples from Bold Rock. $40, 9am. Bold Rock Cider Barn, 1020 Rockfish Valley Hwy., Nellysford. 361-1030.
Family Cville Jr. Idol 2016
Friday, September 9
The Black Box Players and Cville Jr. Idol are celebrating 30 years of the community theater with a chorus of children, teens and adults singing and dancing to some of the most memorable songs from the last three decades. You can also vote for your favorite Idol Jr. contestant, who range in age from 8 to 14. $10, 7pm. Burnley Moran Elementary School, 1300 Long St. blackboxplayers.com
A gas pipeline marker in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. Courtesy of Aaron Ruby
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.”
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.
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.
