Gas pipeline welder at Hastings, WV (Wetzel County)

Donald Watts was born January 1, 1929 in Mannington, WV son of the late Rev. Glenn D. and Minnie J. (Thomas) Watts.

He was a retired welder for C.N.G. Transmission in Hastings, WV, a member of New Martinsville United Methodist Church and a member of Wetzel Lodge #39 A.F.&A.M. He was a loving father and pap and always there to lend a helping hand to neighbors and friends.

In addition to his parents he was preceded in death by three brothers, Dale, George “Buck” and Robert Watts; infant sister, Betty Jane Watts and son-in-law, Kenneth “Bill” Fisher.

Surviving are his high school sweetheart and beloved wife of seventy-three years, Erma O. (Barr) Watts; two daughters, Donna (Robert) Jones of Paden City, WV and Brenda (Steve) Rector of New Martinsville, WV; four grandchildren, Marsha (Joseph) Craycraft of Wheeling, WV, Kenneth (Lori) Fisher of Asheville, NC, Brian Jones of Paden City, WV and Angela (Jordan) Swanberg of Paden City, WV; eight great-grandchildren, Nathan, Kelsey and Lola Fisher, Emma and Sarah Craycraft and Josiah, Autumn and Aspen Swanberg and several nieces, nephews and cousins.

Friends received 4-7 p.m., Thursday, February 10, 2022 at the Jarvis-Williams Funeral Home, 1224 S Bridge St., New Martinsville. Funeral service 1 p.m., Friday, February 11, 2022 at the New Martinsville United Methodist Church with son-in-law, Pastor Steven Rector officiating. Burial to follow in Paden Memorial Gardens in Paden City, WV.

Memorial contributions may be made to New Martinsville United Methodist Church, 10 Howard Jeffers Dr., New Martinsville, WV 26155. Family is requesting everyone to wear a mask.

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Dominion to work on Hastings natural gas plant in late September of 2013

From the Reuters News Staff, August 13, 2013

NEW YORK, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Dominion Transmission Inc, a unit of Dominion Resources Inc, on Tuesday said it would take the Hastings natural gas extraction plant in West Virginia out of service for planned maintenance from Sept. 30 through Oct. 3.

In a website posting, the company said all gathering system production and direct taps feeding into its system flowing to Hastings would be shut-in for the work.

Gathering production feeding the Lightburn and Schultz extraction plants, also in West Virginia, may not be shut-in if such production can continue to flow without constraints, the posting said.

Dominion Transmission said it would monitor field pressures in order to preserve system integrity and may need to adjust flows to each plant during the outage.

The Hastings extraction/fractionation plant is located near Pine Grove, West Virginia. It produces and supplies natural gas liquids including propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline, according to the company’s website.

Dominion Energy plans extensive wind farm offshore in VA

From an Article by Sarah Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury, November 5, 2021

Dominion Energy revised the price tag of its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project upward to $9.8 billion from an earlier estimate of $8 billion, company executives announced Friday in an investor call.

Dominion CEO, chair and president Bob Blue attributed the more than 20 percent jump to “commodity and general cost pressures,” as well as the completion of design plans for bringing the power generated by the wind farm to customers onshore in Virginia Beach.

Over the next 30 years, the utility projected the wind project would cost the average Dominion residential customer in Virginia an extra $4 a month, with an initial increase starting September 2022 of approximately $1.45 more per month. During the call, Blue said the project’s increased price tag did not impact those estimates because the company is also projecting that the wind farm will be more productive than originally expected.

On Friday’s investor call, Blue told analysts that $1 billion in federal tax credits for the project could help drive down some of the bill impacts for customers. The company has also said that fuel savings costs are expected to amount to $3 billion over the wind farm’s first 10 years.

Dominion’s plans must be approved by the State Corporation Commission, although provisions of the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act declaring the utility’s construction of the project to be “in the public interest” and directing approval of certain costs will largely tie regulators’ hands.

Offshore wind, along with nuclear, is a key cornerstone of the utility’s efforts to decarbonize its electric fleet — the goal of the VCEA as well as Dominion’s own net-zero pledge. The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project “is essential to meeting the policy goals set forth in the VCEA and other legislation mandating the development and deployment of renewable generation resources.”

Critics, however, have contended that the language of the VCEA dealing with offshore wind constitutes an unnecessary giveaway to Dominion that will saddle customers with unreasonable costs. One ProPublica-Richmond Times-Dispatch investigation found that a late change to the law requested by Dominion increased the allowable costs associated with the wind project from $7.3 to $9.8 billion.

One 2020 estimate by the SCC found that by 2030, the VCEA could increase customers’ electricity costs by $800 annually. Republicans, fresh from retaking control of the House of Delegates and executive branch in elections Tuesday, on Thursday said one of their priorities would be rolling back Democrats’ climate change policies, of which the VCEA was the most prominent.

Asked about whether Dominion expects a change in energy policy out of Richmond during Friday’s investor call, Blue said that the utility over the past 15 years “has maintained constructive relationships with members of both parties, and we don’t see any reason that would change.”

Eternal vigilance needed to protect our water supply, streams & rivers (Angie Rosser of WV Rivers Coalition)

Submitted by Julie Archer, League of Women Voters of West Virginia, July, 17, 2021

We’re sharing this important Action Alert from our friends at the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

A recent a policy decision by the WVDEP related to water quality standards creates a loophole to allow industries to dump more toxins in our source water.

This proposal is part of a second round of human health criteria revisions – the portion of our water quality standards that protects our health from dangerous pollutants like cancer causing toxins, chemicals known to cause birth-defects, and poisons like cyanide.

Submit comments on the proposal today! [1]

This policy is dangerous for West Virginia. Not only will it allow more toxins in our drinking water sources, it creates a shortcut for polluters to allow EVEN MORE toxins in our water with less public
involvement.

Ways this policy puts our health and our water at risk:

* The proposal creates a loophole for industry to further weaken the
human health criteria on a case-by-case basis if industry funds a study
that sways the WVDEP to decide that water and fish can handle more
toxins.
* This is handout to big corporations, who can afford the studies.
Hint: chemical manufacturers asked for this loophole, so we are pretty
sure they can afford these studies and are confident they believe they
can demonstrate results in their favor.
* There is already a process in place to revise water quality
standards. The revision sidesteps that procedure by creating a shortcut
that reduces scrutiny and public input in decision-making.
* The loophole exacerbates environmental justice issues by allowing
more toxins in waters near industrialized areas, which are often poorer
communities that are already struggling with problems related to social,
economic, and environmental justice.
* On top of all these factors, it’s just plain old bad policy. It’s_
_vague and sets a precedent for further weakening of water quality
standards statewide.

This is an all hand on deck call to action!

You can submit comments on the proposal through July 19 here [1]. It’s important for the WVDEP to hear personalized responses from commenters. Think about how the policy change would affect you and your loved ones
personally.

In addition to submitting written comments, please plan to join the virtual public hearing on the proposal on July 19 at 6:00PM [2].

See the Links:
——
[1] https://wvrivers.salsalabs.org/hhc2021/index.html

[2] https://dep.wv.gov/events/Pages/event.aspx?eventid=363

Dominion cancels Atlantic Coast Pipeline, sells natural gas transmission business

ACP pipeline right of way trees cut at highly sensitive location

PHOTO: Pipeline scene at Wintergreen — A path had been cleared for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline on this Blue Ridge Mountain slope at the entrance to Wintergreen resort, just below the project’s planned crossing beneath the Appalachian Trail.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is dead, abandoned by Dominion Energy and its partner, Duke Energy, ending a 600-mile natural gas project that would have cost at least $8 billion to complete.

Dominion and Duke announced Sunday that they have canceled the project in the face of mounting regulatory uncertainty caused by a federal court ruling in Montana that overturned the nationwide federal water quality permit the project relied upon to cross rivers, creeks and other waterbodies.

“We regret that we will be unable to complete the Atlantic Coast Pipeline,” Tom Farrell, chairman, president and CEO of Richmond-based Dominion, said in a bombshell announcement.

Dominion also announced that it is selling its natural gas transmission and storage business to Berkshire Hathaway Energy for $10 billion.

“For almost six years, we have worked diligently and invested billions of dollars to complete the project and deliver the much needed infrastructure, to our customers and communities,” Farrell said.

However, he concluded, “This announcement reflects the increasing legal uncertainty that overhands large-scenergy and industrial infrastructure development in the United States. Until these issues are resolved, the ability to satisfy the country’s energy needs will be significantly challenged.”

For opponents, the abandonment of the project represents vindication of grass-roots opposition that arose along the pipeline’s path.

“It’s all about the people,” said Nancy Sorrells, who helped form the Augusta County Alliance against the project in 2014 and represents the county in the Alliance of the Shenandoah Valley. “They knew it was wrong from start to finish and just never gave up.”

Rick Webb, a retired environmental scientist who helped lead the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition from his home in Highland County, said of Dominion, “They should have known better. It was a bad idea from the beginning. Dominion, with its ill-conceived project, has done a lot to strengthen the environmental community in the region,” Webb said. “Thank goodness for that.”

The grass-roots opposition also drove an aggressive legal strategy led by the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, which foiled the project by persuading the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to throw out numerous federal and state permits needed to complete the project.

Greg Buppert, who helped lead a wide-ranging legal battle against the project as senior attorney for the Southern Environment Law Center, was stunned by the announcement. “Wow!” Buppert said Sunday. “Wow.”

The law center, based in Charlottesville, won a series of victories against federal and state permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but lost a pivotal fight in the U.S. Supreme Court last month over a permit for the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains between Augusta and Nelson counties.

Dominion announced separately on Sunday that it is selling its natural gas transmission and storage business to Berkshire Hathaway by the end of the year.

Berkshire will take on $5.7 billion in debt from Dominion’s transmission and storage business — which does not reflect the parent company’s investment in the pipeline — and pay the company $4 billion, which will allow it to buy back stock to stabilize its earnings.

The sale includes more than 7,700 miles of gas pipelines and 900 billion cubic feet of gas storage. Dominion will keep a 50% interest in the Cove Point liquefied natural gas terminal on the Chesapeake Bay, but Berkshire will receive a 25% interest in the facility and operate it.

Farrell said the deal would allow the company to focus on its electric utilities in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as local gas distribution companies in the Carolinas, West Virginia, Ohio and Utah.

He said the company plans to invest $55 billion over the next 15 years in technologies to reduce emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming, retire fossil fuel power plants, and develop sources of renewable natural gas, including animal waste.

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See also: Atlantic Coast Pipeline faces doubts — As the cost of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline soars, renewable energy is the better option for NC, Ned Barnett, Raleigh News & Observer, March 16, 2020

ACP is being developed mainly for 15% private profit at public expense

From an Article by Sarah Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury, June 23, 2020

Last week, the Supreme Court handed a victory to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline when it ruled that the U.S. Forest Service had the authority to allow the project to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail. But the end of that battle has seen the revival of another, more fundamental conflict: whether the pipeline really is needed.

“The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is needed now more than ever for our region’s economy and our path to clean energy,” wrote Dominion spokesperson Ann Nallo in an email to the Mercury Friday. “Communities across Hampton Roads, Virginia and eastern North Carolina are experiencing chronic shortages of natural gas. They urgently need new infrastructure to support military bases, manufacturing and home heating.”

Not everyone agrees. Since 2017, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted the pipeline a certificate of public convenience and necessity, the project has been dogged by legal challenges. Many have been successful, particularly in the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has overturned key permits from agencies including the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Virginia Air Pollution Control Board.

Nor has the project’s central permit — the 2017 FERC approval — gone unchallenged. In 2018, eight cases from environmental groups and landowners were consolidated in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to dispute the necessity of building the 600-mile-long pipeline from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina.

That case was paused after the Supreme Court agreed to take up the Cowpasture case over the pipeline’s Appalachian Trail crossing. But with the high court’s June 15 ruling, the D.C. Circuit will now again have the chance to grapple with the issue.

The revival of the FERC approval challenge also comes as Dominion is petitioning FERC to extend the pipeline certification another two years, citing “unforeseen delays in permitting.”

The company has said it expects its missing permits to be resolved and construction to resume by the end of 2020, with the pipeline entering service in early 2022. On a May 5 investors call, Dominion executives, including CEO, president and chairman Tom Farrell, repeatedly said that a productive tree-felling season between November and March would be key to keeping the project on its most current forecasted schedule.

Justifying need is problematic for ACP owners

Meanwhile, the FERC litigation that was back-burnered by the Cowpasture case is heating up again. In those proceedings, opponents represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center are contesting FERC’s certification not only on environmental and eminent domain grounds, but also on the grounds that the commission’s review of its necessity was flawed.

These parties argue that FERC’s 2017 approval of the project was “arbitrary and capricious” because the commission based its determination of need for the pipeline solely on the existence of six “precedent agreements” — contracts that lock a customer into purchasing a certain amount of gas from a pipeline developer before the project is built.

Such ‘precedent agreements’ have long been used as justification for pipeline development. As the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Alaska Gas Transportation Projects wrote almost a decade ago, these contracts represent “a delicate dance between builders and shippers.”

“A pipeline developer that has signed enough ‘precedent agreements’ with enough shippers for enough of its pipeline capacity holds strong evidence that the market is willing to pay for the project,” the 2011 brief explained. “The developer then can seek formal government permission to build the pipeline and go to financial markets for construction financing — two steps usually needed before construction can begin.”

But in the case of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, opponents say ‘precedent agreements’ aren’t enough because all six of the agreements were struck with monopoly utilities, almost all of which were affiliated with pipeline developers at the time of FERC approval.

“The parties on each side of the contracts are affiliates,” said Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Greg Buppert. “A Dominion affiliate is building the pipeline. A Dominion affiliate is contracting for capacity on the pipeline. So they’re not truly arms’ length transactions, and there’s an incredible financial incentive to get these projects in the ground.”

In this case, the incentive for utility investors is particularly high: a 15 percent return on billions of dollars in investments, far above the normal rates of return authorized by state utility regulators. “For Dominion and Duke investors, this was always a very good business arrangement,” said Buppert. “They stand to make a lot of money.”

In this view, the logic underpinning the project’s justification is circular: the companies that represent the demand for the pipeline’s gas are the same companies that stand to make large profits from supplying it. And because monopoly utilities are guaranteed to recoup their costs from their captive customers under traditional ratemaking principles, the risks are low.

Dominion, however, contends that legally, “precedent agreements remain the gold standard for proving market need.”

“There is no better evidence of market demand for a service than binding commitments to purchase the service once it becomes available,” a natural gas subsidiary of the company argued in a brief filed in the D.C. Circuit.

And whether those agreements are with affiliated companies makes no difference, Dominion said: in 2019, in a ruling against an array of opponents to the Mountain Valley Pipeline through Virginia and West Virginia, the D.C. Circuit concluded that “the fact that Mountain Valley’s ‘precedent agreements’ are with corporate affiliates does not render FERC’s decision to rely on these agreements arbitrary or capricious.”

“For more than three years and in coordination with more than a dozen other agencies, the Commission reviewed every detail of the project and provided extensive opportunities for public participation,” said Dominion spokesperson Nallo. “The commission addressed all of the important issues that were raised and left no stone unturned. After exhaustive review, the commission concluded that the project serves an important public need and that the public benefits far outweigh its minimal impacts on the environment.”

Changing circumstances need to be considered

Public concern over ACP involves a wide range of issues, e.g. eminent-domain, water pollution, compressor noise, climate change, etc.

“FERC has an obligation to look at the changed circumstances, the changes that have happened since it approved the project in 2017,” said Buppert. “For energy, those changes have been significant.”

In Virginia, the largest change has been the spring 2020 passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act. The sweeping new law, which represents the most progressive climate legislation to come out of the South yet, commits the state to transitioning its electric grid to 100 percent renewable sources by 2050, with Dominion’s target set for 2045.

Pipeline capacity has also grown in the intervening years with expansions of existing systems in Virginia, such as that owned by Transco, said Buppert.

In light of these shifts, on June 1, the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a separate request with FERC to require that a supplemental environmental impact assessment of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline be completed.

Besides Virginia’s move away from fossil fuels, other factors requiring reexamination cited by the SELC include landslide and sedimentation problems documented along the pipeline’s path, new state recognitions of environmental justice populations at the proposed Buckingham Compressor Station site, and growing understanding of the severity and impacts of climate change.

“In light of this substantial new information, the commission’s prior environmental review of the ACP is stale and fails to address significant effects of the project,” the petition concludes.

NOTE: This story was updated to clarify that the “precedent agreements” for the ACP are not temporary but are long-term 20-year contracts.

Pipe lengths awaiting installation after many months of exposure

From an Article by Laura Greenleaf, Blue Virginia, June 22, 2020

On October 13, 2020 Dominion’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) certificate authorizing construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) will expire. Issued three years earlier, the certificate prohibits any construction after that date. With just a few miles of pipeline in the ground six years after originally announcing the project, and with the project billions of dollars over budget, the folks at Dominion now want FERC to give them a two-year extension.

On June 17, 2020, FERC published a Notice of Request for Extension of Time and started the clock ticking on a 15-day intervention and comment period. We have until 5:00 p.m. Thursday, July 2nd to submit comments opposing the certificate’s extension.

In its notice, FERC “strongly encourages electronic filings of comments, protests and interventions in lieu of paper” using the eFiling link at http://www.ferc.gov.

Anyone unable to file electronically should submit an original and three copies of their comments to the Federal Energy regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20426. Cite the ACP docket number in your comments, CP15-554.

Send a strong message to FERC: no special favors for a destructive, fracked-gas pipeline that serves no need other than further enriching Dominion Energy and its shareholders, while passing on the cost to customers. For a refresher on why the ACP is unnecessary and Dominion doesn’t deserve a two year extension, visit the Friends of Nelson website.

In its extension request, Dominion claims that it has suffered “unforeseen delays in permitting” and that “markets to be served by the Projects have been chronically constrained in terms of natural gas supply, as interstate natural gas pipeline capacity is either already fully subscribed or nonexistent. The need for the Projects is undiminished.” In fact, Dominion’s case for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline has been so self-serving and unsubstantiated from the start that the original FERC decision included an unprecedented, robust dissent from Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur, who questioned the justification of public need and found the consideration of alternatives to be inadequate. You can read LaFleur’s opinion at the end of the October 13, 2017 FERC issuance. The permit is under review by the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Dominion Energy’s SCOTUS victory last week does nothing to change the fact that the corporation still lacks eight permits necessary to construct the 600-mile, 42-inch fracked gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline from the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia through western Virginia to southeastern North Carolina. Revoked permits include four Clean Water Act authorizations, the biological opinion under the Endangered Species Act, and the Virginia air pollution permit for Dominion’s proposed compressor station in Buckingham County’s Union Hill, a majority minority community founded by freed slaves after the Civil War.

The delays Dominion failed to foresee are the result of justice finally being served, and represent a rare rebuke to Dominion’s customary bending of regulatory systems to its will. Now, FERC needs to hear from Virginians that the days of rubber-stamping profit-driven fossil fuel infrastructure must end. File your comments here and cite the ACP docket number in your comments [CP15-554].

The goal is “zero carbon emissions” by 2050 ...

From an Essay by Ivy Main, Virginia Mercury, May 14, 2020

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Dominion Energy Virginia filed its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan on May 1. Instead of charting the electric utility’s pathway to zero carbon emissions, it announced its intent to hang on to all its gas plants, and even add to the number. In doing so, it revealed a company so thoroughly wedded to fracked gas that it would rather flout Virginia law and risk its own future than do the hard work of transforming itself.

The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) may be new, but Dominion can hardly claim to be surprised by the commonwealth’s move away from fossil fuels. Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order last September set a statewide target of zero carbon emissions from the electric sector by 2050. “Challenge accepted,” said a Dominion spokesman at the time, and in February of this year the company claimed it was embracing a 2050 net-zero-carbon goal company-wide. A month later, passage of the Clean Economy Act moved the deadline up to 2045 for Dominion, keeping it at 2050 for utilities that lack Dominion’s head start of 30 percent nuclear power.

Dominion’s IRP, however, does not accept the challenge to get off fossil fuels. It rejects the challenge, directing a giant middle finger at the governor and the General Assembly. Dominion’s “preferred” plan keeps the utility’s existing fracked gas generating plants — currently 40 percent of its electric generation — operating through 2045. The IRP acknowledges this violates the law, so it argues against the law.

The IRP posits that if Dominion stops burning gas in Virginia, it will instead simply buy electricity from out of state, some of which will be generated by gas, and this will cost more money without reducing carbon emissions at the regional level. Better, then, to keep burning gas in Virginia.

It gets worse. The IRP actually proposes increasing the number of gas combustion turbines in Dominion’s fleet. The VCEA imposes a two-year moratorium on new fossil fuel plants, so Dominion’s timetable has these gas peaker plants coming online in 2023 and 2024. The justification is vague; the IRP cites “probable” reliability problems related to adding a lot of solar, but it offers no analysis to back this up, much less any discussion of non-gas alternatives.

Dominion’s flat-out refusal to abandon gas by 2045 poisons the rest of the document. The IRP is supposed to show a utility’s plans over a 15-year period, in this case up to 2035. And for those years, the IRP includes the elements of the VCEA that make money for Dominion: the build-out of solar, offshore wind and energy storage projects. It also includes money-saving retirements of outmoded coal, oil and biomass plants, as the VCEA requires. Heck, it even includes plans to close a coal plant the VCEA would allow to stay open in spite of its poor economic outlook (the Clover plant, half-owned by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative.)

But the IRP proposes no energy efficiency measures beyond those mandated by the VCEA between now and 2025. Dominion hates energy efficiency; it reduces demand, which is bad for business. So the company has made no effort to think deeply about how energy efficiency and other demand-side measures can support a zero-carbon grid — or, for that matter, how customer-owned solar can be made a part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

This isn’t surprising: a plan that contemplates keeping gas plants around indefinitely looks very different, even in the first 15 years, from a plan that closes them all within 10 years after that.

A company that really accepted the challenge of creating a zero-carbon energy supply would not just get creative in its own planning; it would look beyond generating and supplying electricity, at the larger universe of solutions. It would advocate for buildings constructed to need much less energy, including for heating and cooling, to lessen the seasonal peaks in energy demand.

It would want the state to embrace strong efficiency standards. It would press its corporate and institutional customers to upgrade their facilities and operations to save energy, especially at times of peak demand. It would partner with communities to create microgrids. It would invest in innovation.

In short, it would ask “How can we achieve our fossil-free goal?” instead of asking “How can we keep burning gas?”

It’s not hard to understand why Dominion clings to gas; its parent company is fighting desperately to keep the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project alive in the face of spiraling costs (now up to $8 billion), an increasingly uphill battle at the State Corporation Commission to stick utility ratepayers with the costs of a redundant gas supply contract and a dearth of other customers anywhere along the route.

What is really hard to understand, though, is why Dominion chose to be quite so transparent in its disdain for the VCEA. Senator Jennifer McClellan and Delegate Rip Sullivan, both Democrats, who introduced the law and negotiated its terms with Dominion lobbyists and other stakeholders through many long days and nights, reacted to the IRP with entirely predictable outrage. In a statement they responded:

“The VCEA requires Virginia utilities to step up to the plate and be active leaders in carbon reduction. Dominion Energy’s IRP is tantamount to quitting the game before the first pitch is thrown. The law sets clear benchmarks for Virginia to reach 100 percent clean energy by 2045, not for utilities to plan to import carbon-polluting energy from West Virginia or Kentucky.”

Senator McClellan, it might be pointed out, could be on her way to becoming Virginia’s next governor. Most companies would hesitate to offend a leader of her stature, as well as such a prominent Democratic leader as Delegate Sullivan.

But that’s Dominion for you. It will rise to any challenge, as long as the challenge doesn’t require anything the company didn’t already want to do.

>>> NOTE: Ivy Main is a lawyer and a longtime volunteer with the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter. A former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employee, she is currently the Sierra Club’s renewable energy chairperson. Her opinions are her own in this essay.

.... many spoke out but few were listening ...

From an Article by Vivian Thomson, Virginia Mercury, January 9, 2020

On January 7, 2019, I posed the following question about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline compressor station proposed for Union Hill: “Is an African-American community in rural Virginia the right place to put a massive compressor station for a natural gas pipeline? This is the question the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board will consider at its meeting Tuesday.”

On Tuesday, exactly a year later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit vacated the air board’s decision to approve a permit for the compressor station, concluding that the board and the State Department of Environmental Quality failed to consider “whether this facility is suitable for this site.” The court also found “arbitrary and capricious and unsupported by substantial evidence” DEQ’s refusal to consider as Best Available Control Technology an electric turbine, which would not emit on-site air pollution.

I argued last January that Gov. Northam should pressure Dominion Energy, the lead partner in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline consortium, to find another site for the station, or that the governor should work with the General Assembly to that end. Several weeks earlier, in November 2018, the governor had abruptly ended the tenure of two air board members who were opposed to the compressor station. In sending this unmistakable message to the board, Governor Northam sided with Dominion Energy, even before all the facts were in.

Here are some of the facts that, as far as I know, the air board never saw. Researchers have not identified a safe threshold for exposure to fine particulate matter, which increases the risk of death at levels below the EPA’s standards. Each additional microgram per cubic meter of airborne fine particulate matter, measured as an annual average, causes an estimated 0.6 to 1 percent increase in mortality. Dominion Energy’s modeling showed that the compressor station’s pollution could add 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particulate matter to local annual average levels of fine particulate matter. Buckingham County already shows a lower life expectancy than the statewide average.

Scientists have connected cardiovascular and respiratory disease with exposure to fine particulate matter concentrations similar to those estimated in Dominion’s air-quality modeling. African Americans are among the most vulnerable to the effects of fine particulate matter exposures.

The air board is made up of citizens appointed by the governor who work without pay to promote transparency via public debates and votes and to broaden the base of regulatory decision making. Those board members rely on DEQ’s staff and leaders to provide them with both a wide range of regulatory alternatives and also with insightful, complete analyses.

Clearly, DEQ failed the board on both counts. I wish I could say I was surprised. In 2008, when I was on the air board, two fellow board members suggested that the 1987 board statement on site suitability should be revised, to clarify the board’s powers with respect to site suitability. The board members’ ideas were rebuffed by senior officials in the administration of then-Gov. Tim Kaine, including DEQ managers.

As I set forth in my 2017 book, Climate of Capitulation: An Insider’s Account of State Power in a Coal Nation, Virginia suffers from a persistent tendency by elected politicians and DEQ’s management to yield to the regulated community’s preferences, whether those preferences are explicitly stated or merely anticipated. On two high profile power plant permits that the board considered during my tenure, DEQ staff and managers repeatedly failed to press companies to achieve the lowest emissions possible, within the constraints of the law and available technologies.

In the wake of the outrage about a racist photo discovered on his medical school year book page, Gov. Northam has professed his support for the state’s minorities. So, it’s time for our governor to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. The governor must ensure, either through pressure or legislation, that this compressor station is moved to a remote location well away from people and non-human organisms that might be adversely affected.

The air board must assert its right to have the full picture on best technologies. Since the 4th Circuit has now decided that the board’s legal obligation includes formally assessing the environmental justice implications of its decisions, the board must revise and take public comment on its 33-year-old site suitability policy, before making any other permit decisions.

And finally: It is long past time for new management at DEQ.

The dedicated staff at DEQ deserve to be led by someone who will take them to high ground and help them hold it.

Friends of Nelson County & others are “standing” with Union Hill

Map from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 18, 2015

From the Allegheny – Blue Ridge Alliance, ABRA Update #257, December 19, 2019

Efforts by Dominion Energy to convince Congress to approve having the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) cross the Appalachian National Scenic Trail have not yielded results.

For most of the past year Dominion has been seeking to have a rider added to other legislation that would, in effect, overturn the decision of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that vacated the permit for the ACP issued by the U.S. Forest Service.

Within the past week, two prominent bills that were believed to be possible vehicles for the Dominion amendment – the National Defense Authorization Act and the continuing resolution funding the Federal Government –passed without language addressing the AT issue.

For now, the issue remains pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments on an appeal of the Fourth Circuit decision on the case (U.S. Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association, et. al.) on February 24. A decision on the case is anticipated to be announced in June.

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Dominion still sees U.S. Atlantic Coast natgas pipe online in 2022 despite Morgan Stanley’s doubts

From an Article by Scott DiSavino, Reuters News Service, December 16, 2019

(Reuters) – Dominion Energy Inc said on Monday it was confident it will complete the proposed $7.3-$7.8 billion Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina by early 2022, in response to a prediction by investment bank Morgan Stanley that a court decision would likely scuttle the project.

“We remain committed to completing the project for the good of our economy and the environment,” Dominion spokesman Aaron Ruby said, noting the company expected to complete construction in late 2021 with final in-service in early 2022.

Dominion made its comments after Morgan Stanley said in a report that “Atlantic Coast will likely not be completed given the Fourth Circuit’s likely (in the bank’s view) rejection, for the third time, of a newly issued Biological Opinion and Incidental Take Statement that we expect to come by the first quarter of 2020.”

In July, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) second Biological Opinion because the court found the agency’s decisions were arbitrary and would jeopardize the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee and other endangered species.

Federal agencies use Biological Opinions when authorizing projects that could adversely affect threatened or endangered species or critical habitats, and issue take statements to limit the number of those species that could be harmed. Ruby said Dominion expects the FWS will issue a new Biological Opinion in the first half of 2020.

Dominion suspended construction of the 600-mile (966-kilometer) project in December 2018 after the Fourth Circuit stayed the FWS’ second Biological Opinion.

Dominion and its partners, Duke Energy Corp and Southern Co., are also working through a dispute over where the pipeline can cross the Appalachian Trail. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the Appalachian Trail case, which is also important for the construction of EQM Midstream Partners LP’s Mountain Valley gas pipe from West Virginia to Virginia.

The Supreme Court may issue a ruling in May or June 2020. So, the Appalachian Trail dispute may be resolved by a Supreme Court decision or an administrative or legislative solution.

A route revision was the likely compromise for the endangered species dispute but noted that could boost the project’s costs to around $8 billion and push completion into 2022.

When Dominion started work on the 1.5 billion cubic feet per day pipe in the spring of 2018, the company estimated it would cost $6.0-$6.5 billion and be completed in late 2019.

The money being spent on lobbying and so-called public relations belongs in the state budgets for public disgression, to say nothing about excessive salaries

From Doug Jackson, Sierra Club, July 16, 2019

>>> Legislators Deeds, Hurst, Rasoul, Roem, and Others Call on FERC to Halt Fracked Gas Project

RICHMOND, VA — Today, 18 Virginia legislators announced they sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking the Commissioners to issue a stop work order for the fracked gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). The letter cited the project’s cost, environmental impact, and lack of need as reasons to halt construction and reassess its justification. 22 legislators from North Carolina sent a similar letter to FERC in May asking for a stop work order while it reassesses the need for the ACP.

Specifically, the letter mentions:

>>> “the pipeline’s now $7.8 billion price tag would be passed on to captive ratepayers under the developers’ plans”

>>> “the pipeline developers have never demonstrated public need for the ACP”

>>> “a growing body of evidence that the developers have overstated the demand for gas”

>>> “the ACP is facing numerous legal challenges”

In response, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter Director Kate Addleson released the following statement:

“The fracked gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline threatens Virginia’s air, water, climate, and communities and its construction should be stopped immediately. The Sierra Club Virginia Chapter applauds these legislators for standing up to polluting corporations like Dominion Energy that are putting their profits over people. Dominion’s tight grip on Virginia politics has been well-documented and these legislators deserve tremendous credit for standing up for their constituents against Dominion’s influence.”

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THE NEW POWER BROKERS —
“A Resolution Condemning Pipeline Challengers Passed Easily. A Pipeline Lobbyist Wrote It,” by Kate Mishkin, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, July 11, 2019

A Dominion Energy lobbyist drafted the resolution and bought meals for its supporters in West Virginia’s legislature. He says there’s nothing unusual about it. The public wasn’t told.