Hi! My mother just called to tell me that we were served today. She has not read the documents – said about 2 inches worth. A private server who lives in Fluvanna brought them. Had to deliver one to Andersonville, one to Yogaville and one other – so 4 that we know of in Buckingham County today. Must respond in 21 days. Irene

P.S. Today was my father’s birthday.

Note: Mt. Rush is an unincorporated community in Buckingham County, Virginia. It is located at the east endpoint of State Route 24 at Highway 60. Its elevation is 509 feet. The geographic center of Virginia is just a few miles south of the community.

From: Glen Besa, VA Sierra Club
Date: December 12, 2017

Hi folks,

Here is my take on what happened today and what it means for the ACP and MVP.

An amendment to the 401 Certification for the ACP was approved 4-3 today with Roberta Kellam. Nissa Kent and Robert Wayland voting against it because they supported a stronger action more toward deferral or rejection.

The amendment would appear to delay effective date of the certificate several months until VA-DEQ has reviewed and given final approval to the Karst Plan, Annual Standards and Specifications, the Erosion and Sediment Control Plan and the Stormwater Management Plan (the latter added by another amendment). Otherwise, the 401 certification should look much like the MVP certificate issued last Thursday.

We should see the final 401 certificate posted on line on DEQ’s home page tomorrow – http://www.deq.virginia.gov/

It is important to note the amendment provides that while DEQ is to report to the SWCB on the these plans, the final sentence says the “Board may consider further actions ….”. This probably means it will only come back before the board if we have 4 votes to bring it back — we only had 3 votes today. Not good news.

The determination of the adequacy of these plans falls to DEQ which may have a new director if Northam elects to replace David Paylor. In any case, the ball for the ACP will be in the Northam Administration court.

Our attorneys are sorting this out and so are Dominion’s attorneys. We certainly don’t want to discuss litigation strategy on an open listserv, but I suspect we will be appealing the ACP decision as well although the amendment may complicate the appeal. That is up to our attorneys to sort out. And Dominion might appeal as well.

For those of you concerned with the MVP, note that efforts were made today to get the Board to reconsider and reverse its approval of the 401 certification for the MVP but they were not successful. While the MVP certificate lacks the added language of the ACP certificate noted above, that is not necessarily a worse outcome than what happened today.

Environmental groups have already filed suit against the MVP 401 certification, and we have a solid record because of all the great testimony from the hearings on which to challenge the MVP 401 certification. Other than that we should not be discussing litigation strategy on email.

Bottom line, the SWCB unfortunately approved both the MVP and ACP and the fight goes on in the courts and in the streets. Grassroots pressure on the Northam Administration will be critical because decisions related to both the ACP and the MVP will clearly be in front of VA-DEQ in the Northam Administration.

Keep the faith and keep fighting!

Glen Besa, VA Sierra Club
glenbesasierraclub@gmail.com
Richmond, VA