Pipelines are Worse in Steep Terrain
Dear Friends of Wild Wonderful West Virginia
From the West Virginia Sierra Club, October 1, 2016
Our Senator Capito recently brought Energy Secretary Moniz to West Virginia. She followed up with a newspaper opinion piece touting “infrastructure” – something that sounds wholesome, like Mom and apple pie.
“Good Infrastructure” is both benign and beneficial – we know well that our roads and bridges need upgrading. They’re essential to the welfare of all our citizens.
But then there’s the other kind of infrastructure.
Senator Capito is currently advancing a bill in Congress that would greatly expand and accelerate one harmful kind of infrastructure in West Virginia – the gas infrastructure made up of gigantic gas pipelines, industrial scale compressor stations, and more. What’s wrong with that?
The gas companies use the legal subterfuge of eminent domain to force their facilities onto our citizens’ private property – often farms and homesteads that have been in the family for generations – against the landowner’s will. In effect the Company takes your farm, tears it up, and ruins it- – so they can build their pipeline. This is bad infrastructure – the kind the senator forgot to share with Secretary Moniz.
And she forgot to tell Mr. Moniz about the destroyed forests and the uncontrolled erosion, not to mention hundreds of polluted streams, ruined water wells, and more. This is Senator Capito’s “woeful lack of infrastructure,” a lack that we can only hope will continue.
And in addition to the personal devastation to families and their property, there’s more – much more.
Natural gas is basically methane, a very potent greenhouse gas causing climate disruption. The methane leaks into the air at every stage of gas production. And when it burns in a power plant it puts CO2, another major greenhouse gas, into our air.
Science has shown us that pouring methane and CO2 into the air is raising the temperature of our planet, with catastrophic consequence unless we stop. Senator Capito’s gas infrastructure could make us break promises we’ve made to our own citizens and the rest of the world to stop cooking the Earth. Our children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences.
Oh, and Senator Capito failed to show Secretary Moniz the sustainable energy that is springing up all over West Virginia – increasingly popular homeowner rooftop solar power, plus utility-scale wind farms – part of a new “green” economy with thousands of good jobs for West Virginians.
Take Action to let Senator Capito know she doesn’t speak for West Virginia when she plays cheerleader for destructive gas infrastructure.
>> From the WV Sierra Club, PO Box 4142, Morgantown, WV 26504
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