Tag: mountain valley pipeline

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In brief: Fate of Lee statue determined

City Council voted Monday to donate the Robert E. Lee statue to the Jefferson School, which will melt it down and use the bronze to create a new work of public art. Photo: Eze Amos

Lee will melt

Charlottesville’s statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee is about to take even more heat.

At the end of its Monday meeting, City Council unanimously voted to donate the Lee monument to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which plans to melt down the statue and use the bronze to create a new work of public art.

Though council originally wanted to hold off on making its decision due to Vice-Mayor Sena Magill’s absence, the councilors decided to move forward with the vote at the end of the meeting after multiple frustrated community members urged them to do so during public comment.

The project, titled Swords Into Plowshares, will gather extensive input from the descendants of enslaved persons who were disenfranchised by Virginia’s Jim Crow laws. The Jefferson School will then commission an artist of national significance to create a new bronze sculpture in partnership with the community.

Once completed, the artwork will be gifted to the city to be installed on public land by 2026. The project will ultimately transform “what was once toxic in our public space into something beautiful that can be more reflective of our entire community’s social values” and “offer a road map for other communities to do the same,” writes Jefferson School Executive Director Andrea Douglas.

The project has received support from many local and national organizations, and raised nearly $600,000. The Jefferson School has launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise an additional $500,000 for the first phase of the years-long effort.

According to the campaign website, the funding will go toward transporting the statue to a foundry and melting it, conducting a six-month community engagement process, commissioning a nationally recognized artist, and hiring a salaried project manager.

Though the city received four other offers for the Lee statue, the councilors did not discuss them during the meeting. The Jefferson School was the only local entity that made a bid for the monument.

The city also has to decide what to do with the statues of Stonewall Jackson and Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea. Council will vote on their fates on December 20.

Pipeline permit panned

The Mountain Valley Pipeline, a controversial natural gas pipeline under construction in western Virginia, was dealt a significant setback last week when the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board denied an important construction permit. The company planned to construct a compressor station in a predominantly Black community in Pittsylvania County, which garnered pushback from activists and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The APCB cited the Virginia Environmental Justice Act, a 2020 law that requires state agencies to examine proposed policies “in relation to [their] impact on environmental justice prior to adoption,” in its denial of the permit. The Mountain Valley Pipeline team is now “evaluating its next steps,” says the Virginia Mercury.

In brief

Lee statue pedestal comes down in Richmond

Charlottesville isn’t the only city figuring out what to do with its reclaimed Confederate spaces. On Monday, Richmond’s leaders ordered the removal of the graffiti-covered pedestal that used to hold the statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue. The pedestal had become a symbol of the protests against police brutality that unfolded across the city and country in 2020, and the area around the dramatic, colorful pedestal had remained an informal gathering place. The land will now be controlled by city of Richmond, and its future remains unknown.

Karen Greenhalgh. Photo: Ballotpedia

It’s really over now

A recount confirmed a narrow Republican victory in House of Delegates District 85, in which Karen Greenhalgh beat one-term incumbent Alex Askew. Greenhalgh’s victory in Virginia Beach confirms that Republicans will hold at least 51 seats in the House for the next two years, though a second narrow Republican victory is pending a recount, too. Greenhalgh beat Askew by 115 votes out of more than 28,000 cast.

They literally stole Christmas

Nine-foot-tall inflatable snowman and Santa Claus decorations were pilfered from a yard in Belvedere this weekend, reports CBS19. The thief arrived at 4 in the morning and threw the decorations in a van, according to the doorbell camera of the affected house. It’s been a season of desperation, it seems—last week, CBS reported that Christmas trees had been stolen from a local farm, too. That’s no way to get in the holiday spirit, people.

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In brief: Sabato’s tweets, Longo’s exposé

File photo.

Larry Sabato will keep on tweeting 

The Republican Party of Virginia has a big campaign underway. The organization is trying to help its candidate, Glenn Youngkin, win a governor’s race in a once-purple state that’s gone blue in every statewide election since 2009. But Rich Anderson, chair of the VA GOP, apparently has other matters on his mind—like Larry Sabato’s tweets. 

Anderson penned a letter to UVA President Jim Ryan last week, accusing politics professor and Center for Politics director Sabato of a “public display of bitter partisanship” online. Anderson says Sabato’s tweets criticizing Donald Trump and the Republican Party violated the non-partisan mission of the university and the center, which is nationally recognized for its election forecasting.

In the letter, Anderson pointed to specific tweets that had hurt his feelings. “Trump, who governed on the edge of insanity for four long years, has gone over the edge,” Sabato wrote on June 3. “Yet millions of people and 90%+ of GOP members of Congress, still genuflect before this false god.”

Sabato told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the letter was “silly but predictable.” He also tweeted about the whole affair. Sabato pointed toward a famous quote from President John F. Kennedy: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great crisis, maintain their neutrality.” 

“All by itself, [that quote] explains why I have said the things I have in the Trump era,” Sabato wrote. 

You tell ’em, Larry.

UVA police chief Tim Longo’s back in the news

Tim Longo watches the statue removals this weekend. Photo: Eze Amos.

The Intercept, a national news site known for investigative and adversarial journalism, posted a long exposé July 9 on Charlottesville’s former police chief Tim Longo, who currently works as the chief of the University Police Department and the associate vice president for safety and security at UVA. The Intercept story recounts a period from 2002 to 2004 during which Charlottesville police, under Longo’s supervision, implemented a “DNA dragnet” to collect cheek swabs from nearly 200 Black men. The story reported that the program targeted more Charlottesville residents than was previously known.

CPD was on the hunt for a serial rapist, who struck first in 1997 and again in 2002. The department had the rapist’s DNA, but no physical description other than that the perpetrator was Black man. Longo then implemented a policy that allowed officers to approach Black men in Charlottesville who the officers felt matched the extremely broad description, and ask for DNA samples. 

The Intercept’s investigation found evidence to refute Longo’s claim from the time that the dragnet was “tightly controlled.” Black men were stopped at random, sometimes at their homes or place of work, and although they were not “forced” to consent to a swab, many felt it was the only option. Those who refused were often asked again. According to CPD court filings, “of the 30 men who initially refused to be swabbed, nine would later relent.” Records revealed that the university and Albemarle County police also swabbed residents, and that UPD handed over UVA students’ information to CPD as well.

Longo abandoned the program when the community pushed back, but Charlottesville resident Raymond Mason tells the Intercept that it represented an “all-time low” for police-community relations in the city, and that the pain caused by the program still resonates.—Amelia Delphos

EPA recommends denying pipeline permits

Photo: Mountain Valley Watch.

The Environmental Protection Agency has recommended that regulatory agencies deny the Mountain Valley Pipeline permission to cross hundreds of streams along the 300-mile natural gas pipeline’s route through West Virginia and western Virginia. If the regulatory agencies heed the EPA’s advice and deny stream-crossing permits, the pipeline construction—already years behind schedule—would slow even further. 

Throughout the pipeline’s construction process, activists have pointed to environmental harm caused by disruptive and invasive fossil fuel projects like this one.

“It’s now common knowledge that MVP has racked up more than 350 water-quality violations where construction has occurred,” wrote Amy Adams of anti-pipeline activist group Appalachian Voices in a statement about the EPA’s recommendation. “The EPA’s clearly articulated concerns should send a loud message to Virginia and West Virginia regulators who are reviewing their own water-crossing permit applications for the project—those permits must be denied.”

“This is not erasing history…The conservators of racism want us to honor the conservators of slavery. No more.” 

—Author Ibram X. Kendi, reflecting on the removal of the statues this weekend

In brief:

Park yourself here

A new park opened in Charlottesville last week at the intersection of Eighth Street and Hardy Drive in the 10th and Page neighborhood, one of Charlottesville’s historically Black neighborhoods. The city owned the land already, and had previously demolished flood-damaged houses on the lot. A $430K Community Development Block Grant funded the facelift. The small park hasn’t been named yet—the city says residents will have a say in choosing the moniker. 

Mental health facilities freeze admissions

Five of Virginia’s eight state-operated mental hospitals are not admitting any more patients, as a staffing crisis has left remaining care workers dangerously overburdened, according to the state’s Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. In the last two weeks, 108 workers have resigned. Local state Senator Creigh Deeds, a committed advocate for increased state investment in mental health, promised that legislators would seek to address the issue in their upcoming legislative session. “We are in a desperate situation,” Deeds told The Washington Post. “I get why admissions had to be closed. I’m frustrated and saddened by it, but we’ll do what it takes to fix the issue.”

Vaccines at work

Since the beginning of the year, 2,429 Virginians have died of coronavirus. Ninety-nine percent of those deaths have been among unvaccinated people, according to a new dashboard released by the Virginia Department of Health last week. Breakthrough cases are possible but extremely rare—4.4 million Virginians are fully vaccinated, and just 17 have died from the virus. 

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Forest fracas: Activists and lawyers continue pipeline fight in western Virginia

Mountain Valley Watch has taken thousands of aerial photos, like the one above, to catalog the pipeline’s construction violations. Erosion control devices called filter socks are visible to the right of the clear-cut path. Photo courtesy Mountain Valley Watch.

In July, the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled, sending shock waves through the energy industry and sparking jubilant celebrations from activists who had spent years fighting the project. 

There’s no rest for the weary, though. Further west, a little deeper into the Appalachian hills, another fight rages on. The Mountain Valley Pipeline, if completed, would pull natural gas from the prehistoric Marcellus Shale deposits underneath West Virginia and carry the fuel 300 miles to southern Virginia. 

After six years of opposition from grass­roots groups and professional environmental advocacy organizations, the fight over the MVP is entering a definitive stretch.

On October 9, a long-standing stop-work order for the pipeline was lifted, allowing construction to resume along most of the pipeline’s length. Then, on November 9, federal judges once again halted work to allow for further examination of a key stream-crossing permit.

The pipeline’s opponents say the regulatory agencies charged with making sure construction unfolds lawfully have been asleep at the wheel. They’re making their case in both the forest and the courtroom. 

EQT, the energy corporation spearheading the project, says the MVP is 92 percent complete. Activists who oppose the project say that’s an overstatement, and that the real figure is closer to 78 percent. 

Either way, “it’s over $3 billion over budget and three years behind schedule,” says Joan Walker, senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign. “And that’s an optimistic outlook.”

“It’s been a long, long opposition,” says Kirk Bowers, co-founder of the Mountain Valley Watch, a volunteer pipe­line oversight organization. The group monitors pipeline construction and submits reports of violations to the various state and federal agencies that are supposed to be overseeing the project, hoping the agencies will then slap the project with sanctions. This monitoring plays an important role in the ongoing pipeline legal debates.

“Over 350 instances have been charged,” says Walker. “There have been many more water quality violations, permit violations that have been found by volunteers in the field, like Kirk Bowers and Mountain Valley Watch, that didn’t result in formal charges.”

These activists, years into this conflict and staring down a huge corporation, still have energy to spare. Bowers, a retired engineer and Charlottesville resident, began his career in local activism arguing against the Route 29 bypass, the proposed highway detour through Albemarle County that was eventually canceled after years of heated discussion and opposition from environ­mental groups. Since then, he’s been all in on pipeline opposition.

For Bowers, the MVP fight is personal, but it’s also about the environment at large. “The pipeline runs through my home county, Roanoke County, just a few miles from where I grew up,” he says. “People need to know about it. It’s larger, it carries more gas than the ACP, which results in much larger greenhouse gas emissions.”

The MVP, if completed, would produce around 90 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year, reports Oil Change International. For reference, the entire state of Virginia produced 105 million metric tons of carbon emissions in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Bowers is emblematic of the grassroots organizers who have banded together to oppose the project for the last half decade and counting. Walker says the activism has been “awe-inspiring.” 

“A lot of these people that are in the fight, they’re not advocates, they’re just trying to live their life,” says Walker. “A lot of folks are retirees, they’ve retired to these mountains.”

Occasionally, the anti-pipeline activists have an informal charm. In a powerpoint detailing the pipeline’s progress, a selection of photos of clear-cut forest is accompanied with the caption, “The Owls Cried For a Week!”

Underestimate these organizers at your own peril, however. The Mountain Valley Watch has built an efficient and high-tech pipeline oversight system, making use of drones and manned aircraft. And other act­ivists have put their bodies on the line to demonstrate their opposition to the project, camping out in trees in the pipeline’s path for weeks at a time.

“Time is money, and delays are costs for the project,” Bowers says. “Its still up in the air whether they’re going to finish it or not.”

Pipeline opponents sense that the corporation’s commitment to the project is waning. On EQT’s latest quarterly earnings call in July, the company’s CEO suggested that he was looking to offload its portion of the project “at cost.” 

Meanwhile, lawyers from a variety of organizations continue to fight the project in court. At the center of the litigation is a disagreement over whether or not the pipeline should be able to pass through the Jefferson National Forest, part of a 2,700 square-mile tract of protected wilderness in Appalachia. In late 2017, the Forest Service signed off on the crossing. The next year, a coalition of environmental groups challenged the Forest Service’s permit and won. Now, an amended permit is back on the table.

Nathan Matthews, senior attorney for the Sierra Club, says the coalition isn’t trying to drag this out, just get an accurate ruling.

“Our concern is that, as proposed, the pipeline just cannot comply with a wide range of environmental laws,” Matthews says. “It’s not that we want to slow down the Forest Service. We want the Forest Service to make a decision, and that decision should be no.”

Matthews and the Sierra Club say the Forest Service overstated the efficacy of the pipeline’s erosion control measures when it granted the permit.

“Building a pipeline involves clearing a swathe of land and digging a trench up and down steep slopes,” Matthews says. “If you wanted to cause a lot of erosion, the thing you would do would be dig a trench straight up a slope.”

The sediment runoff from that con­struction would spell doom for endangered species like the Roanoke logperch, a venerable muddy-colored little fish found only in Virginia and North Carolina, and the candy darter, a shimmering green and orange four-inch-long fish that has as much panache as the most glamorous coral reef dweller.

Matthews says the Forest Service also “failed to comply with its own planning rules” and cut corners when it drew the pipeline’s route through the woods. 

For the last month and half, the Forest Service has been accepting public comment on its latest environmental impact analysis, an important element of the permitting process. The Sierra Club has coordinated the submission of more than 3,000 com­ments, says Walker; thousands more have been turned in by individuals and other groups. (Bowers has submitted his own comments, which he describes as “extremely long.”) The Forest Service will review those comments before issuing another environmental impact statement and making a final decision.

“It’s been a roller coaster ride the last several months,” Bowers says, citing the back and forth over these permits. “We still have a lot of high hopes and spirit, and we’re definitely not giving up fighting this.”

For the time being, EQT continues to move forward with the project, pushing its pipeline through the area’s ancient hills. 

“The portions that they have left to go, it’s the steepest, most difficult terrain,” says Walker. “They literally have an uphill battle.”

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In brief: Pipeline protests, tiger trouble, and more

Anti-pipeline activists in western Virginia are monitoring construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. PC: Mountain Valley Watch

Pipeline pushback

In June, environmental activists celebrated as Dominion Energy canceled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have carried natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina, passing through central Virginia. A little further west, however, the fight continues, as construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline inches along. Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lifted a stop-work order that had been slowing the 300-mile pipeline project.

FERC also gave the MVP two more years to finish construction of the project, which has been grinding forward for six years, slowed by resistance from landowners and litigation from environmental groups.

The watch team for the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights coalition, an umbrella organization made up of smaller groups pushing back against the pipeline, has carefully monitored the pipeline’s construction, looking out for violations that can be reported to the Department of Environmental Quality. It continues to find new violations (the photos above were taken at various points over the last two years).

“These ground photos of the construction are significant to me,” says Roberta Bondurant, POWHR’s co-chair. “We’ve got pipe that floated 1,000 feet across a floodplain when they built the week before storm Michael. Pipe that’s dated 2016 that’s out now, on the ground, [with] coating that’s over 4 years old.”

Bondurant points out that last week’s permit is not definitive. A key permit from the Forest Service is still missing, and other important permits are currently under consideration by the federal court in Richmond.

The MVP group continues to cut corners in order to continue construction, the activists say. “It’s a real word game they play with FERC to allow themselves to go forward,” Bondurant says.

PC: Mountain Valley Watch

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Quote of the week

“This is the third fatal crash on Fifth Street investigated by CPD in less than three months…In memory of those who have died, CPD is asking motorists to be mindful of their speed. Please drive carefully.”

—Charlottesville Police Department, after two people passed away in an accident this week

__________________

In brief

Tiger trouble

Doc Antle, the sinister zoo owner famous for his role in Netflix’s viral “Tiger King” documentary, could wind up wearing orange himself—he’s been indicted on wildlife trafficking charges by Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. Antle lived in Buckingham County in the early part of his career; the indictment alleges that he has recently worked with a private zoo in Winchester to move tiger cubs and other exotic species back and forth between Virginia and Myrtle Beach.

Back to school

After a period of contentious discussion, the Albemarle County School Board voted 4-3 last week to allow up to 5,000 preschoolers through third-graders to participate in non-virtual, face-to-face classes twice a week, starting November 9. Parents must decide by October 16 if they’ll send their kids into school or continue with virtual learning, while teachers have only until the 15th to request to stay home.

Museum motion

As Charlottesville continues to grapple with its legacy of slavery and oppression, a group of nearly 100 local activists, community leaders, and residents have called for the creation of an enslavement museum in Court Square, “depicting in a more visual manner the injustices, horrors, and truths about enslavement.” They hope the city will acquire the 0 Park Street building, the site of the auction block where enslaved people were sold, to house the museum. In February, Richard Allen, a 74-year-old white man, removed and disposed of the slave auction block marker (pictured below). He is now a member of the coalition calling for the museum.

PC: City of Charlottesville

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Edging closer: Atlantic Coast Pipeline gets state go-ahead

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is only one approval away from reality. Construction has already started on its tail ends in West Virginia and North Carolina, and Dominion has applied for permission to start building in Virginia.

Earlier this month, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality issued the final state approval needed to begin construction on the $6 billion, 600-mile, 42-inch diameter Atlantic Coast Pipeline planned to slice through Nelson County on its way from West Virginia to North Carolina, leaving only one more federal hurdle.

Massive opposition to Dominion Energy’s pipeline has made headlines since the project was proposed in 2014.

So when Governor Ralph Northam held his 2018 Governor’s Summit on Rural Prosperity in Staunton, just two days after the October 19 pipeline permit approval, activists were there to meet him. They say he’s touting “rural prosperity” while “greenwashing” his complicity in environmental destruction. 

When Northam was serving as lieutenant governor under Terry McAuliffe in 2014, he sent a letter to DEQ stating that he wanted to make sure all environmental regulations and complaints were thoroughly evaluated, reviewed, and enforced.

“That indicated to a lot of people that he was serious about environmental regulations and making sure DEQ did the job correctly,” says Kirk Bowers, who’s with the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club. “Since then, he’s really not followed through on what he said he would do.”

Bowers had been waiting since last spring to know if DEQ would approve the final erosion, sediment control, and stormwater management plans for the pipeline—the permits were granted a few weeks ago.

“It was a bad decision by DEQ based upon what we’re seeing with the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” says Bowers. The MVP is a similar 42-inch natural gas pipeline that’s currently being built from northwestern West Virginia to the southern part of Virginia.

On October 19, the Army Corps of Engineers suspended an MVP permit to build through waterways in two West Virginia counties. It had previously suspended a permit in Virginia, and now the MVP can’t go through any wetland in its path.

More than 500 incidents have been reported during MVP construction, Bowers says, including numerous erosion violations through mountainous areas and steep terrains very similar to those found in Nelson County.

“I strongly contend that the plans [for the ACP] just aren’t going to work and we’re going to have similar problems like we’re seeing in southwest Virginia,” he says.

Among the activists who paid Northam a visit last weekend was Jill Averitt, who has lived on more than 100 acres in Nelson County with her husband and extended family since 2005. Dominion plans to run its pipeline through their Nellysford property, slicing across a large wooded area just yards from her back porch.

She’s invited Northam, who has received $200,000 in donations from Dominion, and Matt Strickler, his secretary of natural resources, “countless times,” to come hear the concerns of landowners. He shook her husband’s hand when running for the Democratic nomination against Tom Perriello—a known ACP opponent who banned campaign contributions from Dominion—and Northam promised to be in touch for a meeting to discuss the pipeline.

“He never followed through with that,” Averitt says. “We have yet to hear from anyone.”

For the first three weekends of October, the Averitts and other activists who oppose the ACP invited the public to their property to camp or visit for a few days of what they call “camptivism,” to learn why Nelson residents are so vehemently fighting to prevent the pipeline’s construction. Approximately 150 attendees heard from environmental experts, impacted landowners, and local historians.

“Northam’s supposed to represent all of us and he couldn’t even give us the courtesy of an hour?” Averitt asks. “He is allowing and participating in this negligent act of allowing these pipelines to be built in the face of every credible source that says they aren’t needed and [are] ill-advised.”

The governor’s own Advisory Council on Environmental Justice has recommended that the pipeline not be built.

At his summit in Staunton, when asked about the ACP, Northam said Virginia is moving in the direction of wind and solar energy, but in the meantime, he approves the usage of traditional energy sources, reports local news station WHSV. His office did not respond to a request for comment.

The pipeline will benefit the environment because it replaces the need for coal with cleaner-burning natural gas, says Aaron Ruby, a spokesperson for Dominion. With the final state approval, he says Dominion is requesting an okay to proceed with full construction in Virginia from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The company has already received a go-ahead in West Virginia and North Carolina, where it’s been building the ACP for months. Dominion expects it to be fully built by the end of next year.

“This project is all about building a better economic and environmental future for our region,” says Ruby. “Public utilities are depending on it to meet the growing energy needs of consumers and businesses.”

Says Averitt, “If these pipelines are developed, we would create a 600-mile development dead zone around them and jeopardize thousands of rural homeowners’ water along the route. I’d like Northam to explain to me how that is good for rural economies.”

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In brief: Get off the tracks, a Klansman’s plea and and a misidentified racist

Photo: Skycladap.com

See tracks? Think train

That’s advice from Dave Dixon, the safety and compliance supervisor of the Buckingham Branch Railroad, who notes the national increase of railroad crossing fatalities this year.

One of them happened here. An Amtrak carrying GOP congressmen smashed into a garbage truck on Crozet
train tracks in January, killing 28-year-old truck passenger Christopher Foley.

In an increased effort to educate drivers, Dixon offers advice for what to do if your car gets stuck on the crossing:

1. Evacuate the car and get away from the tracks.

2. Call the number on the blue sign at the crossing, not 911.

3. If a train approaches, run toward the train at a 45-degree angle and away from the track.

4. Don’t run down track, where the train could knock the vehicle into you.

Other tips:

  • Don’t drive around the gates.
  • Never try to “beat a train.”
  • At private crossings without gates, stop, look and listen before crossing.
  • Before crossing, be sure there’s enough room on the other side to safely clear the tracks.
  • If the gates are down while you’re on the crossing, drive through the gate. It’s designed to break away.
  • Report any malfunctioning gates, lights or other problems to the number on the blue sign.

Preston pleads

Courtesy of an ACLU video

An imperial wizard of Baltimore’s Confederate White Knights of the KKK, who was charged with firing a gun within 1,000 feet of a school at the Unite the Right rally, pleaded no contest May 5, just one day before his trial was scheduled to begin. Richard Preston was aiming his gun at Corey Long, who pointed a homemade flamethrower at the Klansman in a photo that went viral.

High-paying jobs

Ralph Northam

Governor Ralph Northam was in town May 2 to tout CoConstruct, a web-based company in Albemarle that helps custom homebuilders and remodelers manage their projects, and its plans to expand its IT ops and hire 69 new employees, some of whom will earn over $100,000. Secretary of Commerce and Trade Brian Ball called Charlottesville the “Camelot of Virginia.”

Northam noncommittal on Soering

In his second visit to Albemarle County in five days, Northam was at the Virginia Humanities’ folklife showcase when WVTF’s Sandy Hausman asked him about the pardon petition for Jens Soering amid increased calls from law enforcement supporting Soering’s innocence. Northam said he will stand by the decision of the parole board, which has denied parole 13 times.

Sage Smith episode

DaShad “Sage” Smith

Charlottesville police are still looking for leads in the homicide of Smith, who was last seen November 20, 2012. The disappearance is the subject of an episode on the Investigation Discovery channel show “Disappeared.” “Born this Way” airs at 7pm May 9. Police also seek information on the whereabouts of Erik McFadden, who was supposed to meet Smith the day of her disappearance.

Greene official charged

Larry Snow, Greene County commissioner of revenue, was charged with four felonies for use of trickery to obtain information stemming from a DMV investigation, according to the Greene County Record. Snow, 69, was first elected in 1987. In 2010, he was convicted of practicing law without a license, a misdemeanor.

Bad babysitter

Yowell-Rohm

Kathy Yowell-Rohm pleaded guilty to felony cruelty or injury to a child and operating a home daycare without a license after police found 16 children—most with seriously dirty diapers—from a few months old to age 4 in her home last December. She also pleaded guilty to assaulting an EMT in a parking lot at the November 24 UVA-Virginia Tech football game.

Terrys end treestand-off

Mother Red Terry, 61, and daughter Minor Terry, 30, came down May 5 from the trees on their property near Roanoke where they’d been camped since April 2 to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline after a federal judge found them in contempt and said she’d start fining the Terrys for every day they defied her order.

Quote of the Week

“Out in the fresh air and sunshine, he could just have walked away.” —Judge Rick Moore at the trial of Alex Michael Ramos, who was convicted of the malicious wounding of DeAndre Harris.

Misidentified racist

Don Blankenship, Larry Sabato and MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell

It’s always best if the offended has a sense of humor.

A Huffington Post Instagram account called @huffpostasianvoices posted a photo of UVA’s Larry Sabato along with a story called, “GOP Senate Candidate: ‘Chinaperson’ Isn’t Racist,” referring to Don Blankenship, the West Virginian who recently used the racial slur, and who CNN editor Chris Cillizza has called “the worst candidate in America.”

Sabato did appear in an interview for the story, and on Twitter, he said, “After a loyal former student alerted me to the photo mix up, we reported it and it was quickly corrected.”

Blankenship isn’t his only doppelgänger. Two years ago, reporter Megyn Kelly noted that Sabato looks strikingly similar to the MyPillow infomercial salesman.

Tweeted the founder and director of the university’s Center for Politics, “After all, Don Blankenship, MyPillow guy and I all have a mustache, and everyone knows all mustachioed men look alike.”

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Head to head: Feds approve controversial pipelines

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.”

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Bipartisan issue: Survey says majority of Virginians oppose pipelines

Nelson County mountains. Photo: Jack Looney

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.”