Take Action on Atlantic Coast Pipeline & FERC

by Duane Nichols on April 4, 2017

Forest Service has grave concerns about burying ACP in the mountains

Greenbrier River Watershed Association

Mark Your Calendars & Take Action — April 5 & 6, 2017

Call In Days to Protect Communities from Fracked Gas Pipelines, Compressors and LNG Exports

Right Now, FERC Can’t Approve Any Fracked Gas Pipelines or LNG Export Facilities Because they Don’t have the Legal Quorum Necessary to Cast Binding Votes.

Let’s Keep it That Way

Join the call-in days on April 5 and 6 when we’re asking you to make 6 calls to tell your Senators and the members of the Energy and Natural Resources committee to hold hearings to get to the bottom of FERC’s abuses of power and address them before approving one more appointee to the Commission!

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is a proven rubber stamp for fracked gas pipelines. In 30 years, the FERC Commissioners have only rejected one (1) pipeline project.

Right now, FERC is operating without a Quorum – it only has 2 Commissioners, not the needed 3.* Until a new FERC Commissioner is approved by the Senate, the agency cannot issue the Certificates needed to approve fracked gas pipelines, compressors or LNG exports subject to its jurisdiction.

It’s Time to Call Our Senators and Secure their Commitment to:

  • Oppose Any New FERC Commissioners
  • To Demand Congressional Hearings into FERC Abuses and Bias
  • To identify reforms that will result in an agency dedicated to a just transition to energy that serves the people rather than abuses them.

Demand an investigation and reform of FERC before supporting any Trump nominations.

What will we be saying to senators?

1.FERC is a demonstrably biased agency – it has only denied one pipeline project brought before its commissioners in 30 years

2. Trump’s nominees for FERC Commissioner need to be opposed until Congress has held hearings into FERC’s abuses of power and has identified and put in place needed reforms.

3. Ask Trump’s nominees the tough questions that will expose the bias and abuses that exemplify FERC.

Find more information and all of the resources you need to make your calls, including phone numbers, a sample script, and an optional form to tell us how your calls went here:

http://bit.ly/CallReFERCApril

Details can also be found at our Facebook event page: http://bit.ly/2o2xGkr

>  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >

Down to the Finish Line: DEIS Comments Due

The April 6 deadline for commenting on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Submitting comments for the DEIS is the most important action someone can take to influence the decision of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Even if someone testified at one of the recent FERC comment sessions, they are urged to also file written comments, permitting them to provide more expansive views.

To assist commenters, ABRA has prepared a guidance document:

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic

Coast Pipeline: What is it? What’s in it? What you can do!

Here’s how comments can submitted:

1. File comments electronically (which is encouraged) using the eComment feature on the Commission’s website (www.ferc.gov) under the link to Documents and Filings.

This is an easy method for submitting brief, text-only comments on a project.

2.File comments electronically by using the eFiling feature on the Commission’s website (www.ferc.gov) under the link to Documents and Filings.With eFiling, one can provide comments in a variety of formats by attaching them as a file with your submission.New eFiling users must first create an account by clicking on “eRegister.”

3. File a paper copy of comments by mailing them to the following address:

…………….. Nathaniel J. Davis, Sr., Deputy Secretary

……………….Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

……………….888 First Street NE, Room 1A

……………….Washington, DC  20426
>> Article from Allegheny Blue Ridge Alliance <<

>>> Greenbrier River Watershed Association

>>> 120 W. Washington St. Suite #4

>>> Lewisburg, WV 24901

See also:  www.pipelineupdate.org

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

April Keating April 4, 2017 at 10:26 am

From: April Keating

Pipeline Proposal Raises Questions that Beg for Answers

The comment period on the 42” Atlantic Coast Pipeline comes to a close this Thursday. Anyone who made comments during the pre-filing period MUST submit those comments again, since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has essentially tossed those into a pile of “old business.”

If you are a landowner, you may have already commented. If you are not a landowner along the route, perhaps you are an abutter (one next to property on the pipeline). If you are neither of these things, perhaps you are still concerned about threats to water, safety, and public health, or future economic development. All of these are valid concerns. You should write to the FERC.

Abutters will face most of the same risks as affected landowners, without the offers of money for the use of their property – water contamination, stream degradation, soil contamination, danger of fire or explosion, lowered property value among them. You have a right to have your concerns heard.

Even those not directly abutting could be negatively affected. The incineration zone is 3600 feet from the pipeline center. Our high school sits within the incineration zone, as does our state police barracks.

The evacuation zone for a pipeline this size is 2 miles. If you are wondering if your property is in the evacuation zone, you can consult the GIS layered maps at http://www.pipelineupdate.org. Does your community have an evacuation plan? If not, you might consider asking your county commission, local emergency planning commission, or office of emergency management to develop one. Better yet, consider joining one of these orgs, or even creating a planning commission in your community to address issues that are receiving short shrift.

This project has many more costs than benefits, though you may have only heard about the benefits. Some of the drawbacks include millions in foregone economic development (who wants to start a small business in an incineration zone?), reduced property value (try selling your house when you tell prospective buyers they may be caught in a gas fire), and stream degradation (siltation during construction kills stream life). We have seen this happen with the Stonewall-Momentum gathering line.

The 75-foot permanent easement will be sprayed with herbicides that will runoff into streams, and you can’t put anything but a flower garden on it. This 42” monstrosity will cross the Buckhannon River, our water source, and tributaries 9 times, and cross over miles of underground mines.

The pipeline is buried only feet below the surface, but how far below our streams will it be built? This question has been posed to Dominion by city officials and has yet to be answered. Will it be deep enough to protect the stream bed from going under, or will it be deep enough to connect with underground mines? Either way, our drinking water source is at risk.

What about jobs? Looking at the DEIS for this project (bear in mind this is info given to the FERC by Dominion), there could be 384 temporary jobs and only 22 permanent jobs. What is temporary? The Draft Environmental Impact Statement says the work tours will be 6-12 weeks long. Is it worth risking our water, safety, public health for a few temporary jobs?

How many employees will be locally hired? Not many, if you consider what happened with the Stonewall Momentum gathering line. Very few will be from West Virginia; most of them will be from the south and west. Skilled workers are moved from site to site, not hired locally.

Who will pay for this $5 billion project? Why, the ratepayers, of course, in the form of higher energy rates. Will it provide gas to our area? Nope. All of it is being sent out of state and offshore, so the companies owning it can make money selling it on the world market (where the going rate is higher than domestic). When that happens, our energy prices will rise.

What about tax revenue? Whatever money might come from this project will go to the state coffers, and they will dole it out as they please. Will it go for roads, schools, and other community projects? That is anyone’s guess, but the company has no stated plans to pay for roads or loss of life or property. The fact that they are a limited liability corporation means they won’t be liable for damages.

Don’t take my word for it; have a look at the DEIS yourself: https://www.ferc.gov/industries/gas/enviro/eis/2016/12-30-16-DEIS.asp

This project would have about 1,000 miles of access roads, effectively tripling its length. It will cross almost 2,000 waterways and affect the delicate Karst cavern and water filtration system. Moreover, we know that fracking is going to increase as soon as these projects get their certificate from the FERC. And we know what this means for our region: more water consumed, toxified, and injected, causing earthquakes, water and air contamination, and an exacerbated health crisis.

New York and Maryland have banned fracking. Have they done this because they want to live in the dark ages again? No, it is because they have looked at the evidence and wish to protect their communities. Surely, they want to develop energy and create jobs, but in a healthy, ethical, and sustainable way.

The only way to protect our water, safety, and public health and provide safe jobs is to invest in other types of energy – clean, green energy. Solar power provided more jobs in 2015 than coal, oil and gas combined. Companies like Coalfield Development Corporation are using federal dollars from programs like the Power Plus Plan to train former coalfield workers to do the new jobs that are part of a sustainable future: installing solar panels, sustainable construction, reclamation and remediation are just the tip of the iceberg. Talk about providing jobs – there it is! And guess what – we don’t have to live in the dark.

The deadline for comments is April 6 at 4:59 p.m. Comments can be submitted on paper or electronically, at http://www.ferc.gov. Search for the 556-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, click on the link for the DEIS, and choose the docket # for the project you wish to comment upon. Most people use the pipeline itself (CP15-554), but the 37-mile Supply Header Project in Marshall, Wetzel, and Doddridge is also part of the picture.

April Pierson-Keating, 304-642-9436
Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance
http://www.mountainlakespreservation.org
Clean Water Through Clean Energy

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Frank H. & Angela Deery May 17, 2017 at 2:16 pm

We are for the the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

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