Wild Virginia Sues Virginia State Water Control Board Over Approval of MVP Permit

Press Release from David Sligh, Wild Virginia, December 8, 2017

Today, Wild Virginia has joined allies in filing suit to challenge the legality of the State Water Control Board’s decision to issue a water quality certification for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The lawsuit, filed by attorneys with Appalachian Mountain Advocates in Richmond’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, asserts that the Board has failed base its decision on adequate and complete information and, therefore, lacks a rational basis for its action. All parties admit that vital information and analyses were missing at this time yet the Board endorsed DEQ’s recommendation to approve the rushed permit decision.

“The Board and DEQ cannot determine that the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline will not violate Virginia’s water quality standards without doing detailed and cumulative water quality analyses,” said Misty Boos, Wild Virginia’s Director.

Members of the Board did express doubt that DEQ’s proposal to rely on the Army Corps of Engineers’ Nationwide 12 permit for protection of water quality at stream and wetland crossings would be adequate to meet state standards. However, the Board’s revised certification, which attempts to reserve its authority to address those concerns through another, separate certification process is inadequate. That decision still sidesteps the real issue – that the Board had a responsibility to protect our waters from the whole range of damages this pipeline would cause,” Boos stated.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline project would send fracked gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia through a 42-inch pipe and would involve blasting and excavating through hundreds of streams, including some of the most sensitive and high-value aquatic habitats in the region. It would slice through the headwaters of the Roanoke River watershed endangering water supplies for Roanoke City and Roanoke County and threatens to pollute and disrupt flows in wells and springs that thousands of rural residents rely on.

“The DEQ’s erosion and sediment control plans and stormwater control plans are incomplete and have not been presented to the Board,” said David Sligh, Wild Virginia’s Conservation Director. “Karst analyses are incomplete. Data related to specific waterbody crossings is non-existent. The Nationwide 12 permit has not yet been authorized and determined to be applicable. The procedure is not based on sound science and is legally flawed. We cannot accept this betrayal of our trust and our rights without challenge,” Sligh stated.

Appalachian Mountain Advocates is representing Wild Virginia in the lawsuit along with the Sierra Club, Appalachian Voices, the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resource Defense Council and Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

See the Petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals (Fourth Circuit) here.

Sincerely,

Misty Boos, Director
Wild Virginia, P.O. Box 1065
Charlottesville, VA 22902

misty@wildvirginia.org
www.wildvirginia.org

Fasting to Oppose New Pipelines & LNG Terminals

The 18 Day Fast at FERC Comes to an End, Deemed Successful

From an Article by Ted Glick, EcoWatch.com, September 29, 2015

There were many kind people, including some Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) employees, who thanked me or had supportive things to say during the 18 days that I fasted on water only in front of FERC with 11 other sisters and brothers from September 8 – 25.

The Beyond Extreme Energy-organized “Fast for No New Permits” was not explicitly about “unity.” It was the latest in a now-over-a-year campaign focused on what we call “the most dangerous federal agency most people have never heard of.” We are doing everything we can think of to throw a nonviolent wrench into the gears of the FERC machinery. This semi-independent agency has just kept grinding out permit after permit for the expansion of fracked gas infrastructure, with virtually no rejections of gas industry proposals, from what we’re able to tell, for many, many years.

The idea of doing a serious fast emerged a few months ago as some of us realized that the Pope was going to be in DC in late September, the Pope who has been outspoken about the need for action on the climate crisis and who, yes, had no problem being photographed a couple years ago with that “No al Fracking” sign.

And so on September  8, the day after Labor Day, 12 of us, from ages 19 to 72, began a diet that consisted of water, salt and potassium. Ten of us continued on that diet until the 25th, the day after the Pope’s speech to the U.S. Congress.

There were at least 100 other people who fasted around the country, including several who fasted for 18 days also, as I understand it, in Oak Flat, Arizona, protesting federal plans to take land in Tonto National Forest sacred to local Apache nations and give it to multinational copper companies to mine.

In DC we 12 fasters and other supporters set up camp in front of FERC on the sidewalk every work day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. We passed out many thousands of leaflets and had hundreds of conversations with FERC employees and people passing by. Dutch TV came by and did interviews, as did a dozen or more other press outlets. We found a great deal of support and almost no overt hostility.

One of the more interesting conversations we had was with Norman Bay, chair of FERC. I was able to talk with for a few minutes when he was spotted coming out of the FERC building while most of us on this very hot, sunny day were across the street in the shade of a 30-foot high stone wall. Little of direct substance came out of that discussion, though you never know.

On the 17th day, the day the Pope spoke to Congress, we had a breakthrough with the Washington Post when a reporter interviewed me on the mall and posted a blog about it that morning. The next day that blog post became a substantial part of a good and prominent article in the first section of the paper, taking up 2/3rds of a page and with a big picture. It was helpful to see that Post article reporting that our fast was “to protest what he said was the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s support for the use of fossil fuels and pipelines.”

I would expect lots of FERC employees, including Commissioners, as well as DC judges who will be hearing appeals of FERC’s rubber-stamping ways, see that article and smile.

There is no question this was an effective action. But it was more than that. In significant part because it was a fast—what Gandhi called “the most sincere form of prayer”—and connected to the visit of the people’s Pope, it was also, indeed, about unity.

I lost 30 pounds over those 18 days. It is good to be eating again, slowly returning to normal eating habits. It is good to have energy to work, feel my strength beginning to return, to taste the delicious flavors of fruits and vegetables, the only things I am eating these first two days of my back-to-normal-eating, nine-day plan. It is good to be home after three weeks away.

And it is good to know that the memories of those 18 days and the wonderful community of sister and brother fasters and supporters will be with me always, nourishing my commitment to keep taking action for a stable climate and a transformed world until the day I die.

Ted Glick is the National Campaign Coordinator of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and one of the fasting protesters at FERC.

Ted Glick, CCAN & BXE

See also: Chesapeake Climate Action Network

See also: Beyond Extreme Energy “BXE”

“The gift of the Earth with its fruits belongs to everyone.” — Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, paragraph 71.