Impacts of pipelines severe in VA and WV

From an Article by Charles Young, West Virginia News, August 20, 2018

CLARKSBURG — The Mountain Valley Pipeline project has released as much as 50 percent of its construction workforce as a result of the recent court-ordered work stoppage.

The delay will push the project’s proposed completion date to “the last quarter of 2019,” according to Natalie Cox, corporate director of communications for EQT.

“Because of the continued work stoppage order that impacts more than 200 miles of the project’s route, MVP has released as much as 50 percent of its construction workforce,” she said.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project of EQT and several other partners, has a proposed route spanning more than 300 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. The pipeline will be used to supply natural gas from Marcellus and Utica Shale production to markets in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic.

The project’s original in-service completion date was targeted for “late 2018,” according to Cox.

The company was recently ordered to stop all work after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said EQT and its partners hadn’t obtained rights of way or temporary use permits needed for the pipeline to cross federally owned lands since the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals canceled permits in early August.

FERC issued a modified order Thursday allowing for work to continue on part of the proposed route in West Virginia, Cox said.

“The modification allows construction to restart for approximately 77 miles of the route in West Virginia, with exception of a 7-mile area located in proximity to the Weston Gauley Bridge Turnpike Trail,” she said.

Although work will continue in this area, many of the other workers have been released until FERC gives the green light for full construction to continue, Cox said.

“Despite the construction activities authorized under the modified work order and the FERC-approved stabilization plan, MVP was forced to take immediate measures to address an idled workforce and protect the integrity of the project,” she said.

“MVP is working to mitigate any additional job loss; and we believe we are making progress to receive authorization to resume full construction activities and return the currently released workers back to their jobs.”

In its original work stoppage order, FERC gave indications that the stoppage would not be permanent.

“There is no reason to believe that the Forest Service or the Army Corps of Engineers, as the land managing agencies, or the Bureau of Land Management, as the federal rights of grantor, will not be able to comply with the Court’s instructions and to ultimately issue new right-of-way grants that satisfy the Court’s requirements,” FERC wrote in its order.

The other major pipeline project currently underway in West Virginia, Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline, was also recently ordered to halt work in most areas.

In the wake of a U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that nixed Dominion’s proposed right-of-way crossing of the Blue Ridge Parkway and vacated an Incidental Take Statement issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, FERC ordered a halt to all construction.

Later FERC granted permission for construction to continue on two “critical road bores” — one at Mount Carmel Road in Upshur County and one at U.S. 50 near Bridgeport — as well as certain activities at the Mockingbird Hill Compressor Station in Wetzel County.

The stoppage order has not impacted the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s workforce, according to spokesman Aaron Ruby.

“We’re encouraging our contractors to stay in the area so they’re ready to resume construction at a moment’s notice,” he said. “We’re confident the agencies can quickly reissue the permits, and we’ll get back to work as soon as possible.”

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ACP Pipeline hoping shutdown is resolved within a matter of weeks

From an Article of the Record Delta, Buckhannon WV, August 25, 2018

BUCKHANNON — Atlantic Coast Pipeline officials told the Upshur County Commission Thursday the company expects work to resume on the natural gas pipeline within a matter of weeks.

“Everybody’s hoping it’s really weeks and nothing more than that,” ACP community liaison Mike Cozad said at the commission’s weekly meeting Thursday. “That’s based on things that have occurred with our pipeline, and the feeling is, it’s going to be weeks, and not a longer issue.”

ACP is a joint venture to build a 42-inch-wide natural gas pipeline that will span 600 miles from Harrison County, West Virginia into Virginia and Robeson County, North Carolina; Dominion Energy is the lead developer and operator of the pipeline.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a Stop Work Order Friday after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated two key permits — one of which had been issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and was designed to protect threatened or endangered species. The second is a right-of-way permit issued by the U.S. National Park Service that would have allowed the pipeline to pass beneath the Blue Ridge Parkway and required boring into a mountain along the scenic highway, he said.

Cozad said the work stoppage shouldn’t affect the pipeline’s impact on the local economy. “You shouldn’t see anything changing as far as the number of people out in town during the day — maybe more so,” he said. “They’ve got time now to do that. The hotels are still full, no one’s going to be leaving.”

Dominion Energy workers and employees of the energy company’s contractors are still being paid, and they have several tasks to complete despite the work stoppage, Cozad added.

“We have some limited things we can do to keep the right-of-way stabilized and that our environmental controls are being maintained and those kinds of things, so nothing gets out of whack in that regard, so there’s a little bit of things that need to be kept up if you will.”

Local environmental activist April Pierson-Keating asked Cozad whether ACP has turned in its stabilization plan, but Cozad said it had not yet been completed.

“It has not been finalized yet,” Cozad said. “Our stabilization plan is what we’re allowed to do to wrap things up that, really, if they’re left undone, it’s worse than going ahead and doing it.”

One example in Upshur County is Mt. Carmel Road, where work was well underway when the SWO was issued.

“The (W.Va. Department of Highways) DOH has requested that we go ahead and finish that bore, get it all stabilized, fill it back in so it’s actually less of a hazard than it is right now when remaining open, so that’s the kinds of thing that the stabilization plan takes into account,” Cozad said. “If you have any clout or anything, please contact anybody you can and tell them to get this thing going. It’s having a big impact on a lot of folks in ways that you couldn’t imagine. All of these things cost money, which ultimately impacts the cost of the gas supplied down the road.”

Environmental assessments and protection lacking ...

From an Article by Jonathan Sokolow, Blue Virginia, May 28, 2018

In recent weeks, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) started tree clearing and ground preparation for its proposed 42-inch, 303-mile fracked natural gas pipeline running from West Virginia through Virginia. Almost immediately, reports emerged that MVP and its contractor, Precision Pipeline, LLC were wreaking havoc on Virginia’s water and land resources. Photos and video evidence clearly showed that Precision Pipeline, a Wisconsin company, had no idea how to deal with the springtime mountain rains that typify southwest Virginia, leading to landslides, mud on roads and sediment pollution in creeks and streams. And this massive construction project has only just begun.

Activists are screaming “we told you so” because they have been saying for four years that the Mountain Valley Pipeline cannot be safely built in the mountainous regions of southwest Virginia. Local residents, with growing support from around the Commonwealth, have been arguing that construction of this pipeline alone would create permanent damage to the forests, creeks, streams, springs, and rivers on which hundreds of thousands of people depend for their drinking water. This does not even begin to account for the additional harm that the fracked gas’ methane and other pollutants themselves would cause to our environment. State officials have all but ignored these concerns.

The evidence of Precision Pipeline’s incompetence in the initial stages of this project is mounting, as shown here. In fact, a new Facebook page was just created to catalogue the daily damage being inflicted.

It has gotten so bad that even the weak and/or incompetent Virginia Department of Environmental Quality was forced to concede that one of these incidents was “clearly unacceptable,” leading to an order temporarily stopping construction at a site in Franklin County.

It turns out that someone else is saying we told you so: Dominion Resources. Yes, THAT Dominion Resources.

It turns out that Dominion’s wholly owned subsidiary, Dominion Transmission, Inc. (“DTI”) has been fighting Precision Pipeline in federal court for almost three years in a battle royale over a pipeline that Precision built for Dominion several years ago in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. That fracked gas pipeline, which was part of Dominion’s larger Appalachian Gateway Project, was a relatively small 30 inches in diameter and “only” 55-miles long. The case is pending in federal court in Richmond and is expected to go to trial in October.

Precision completed and was paid for the project – and then sued Dominion for $86 million in additional charges that it claims it is owed. Dominion denies it owes anything more and points, in part, to a series of expert reports that it says document Precision’s incompetence in building the pipeline.

In one of those reports, never before released but published here for the first time (see below), an engineering firm hired by Dominion details a long and terrifying account of Precision Pipeline’s incompetence when it comes to causing landslides during pipeline construction.

Yes, landslides. Thirteen of them. In a 55-mile pipeline project. With a 30-inch pipe. In non-mountainous terrain.

The expert report, prepared by Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc. (“CEC”) an engineering firm hired by Dominion’s law firm, McGuireWoods LLP, shows the following:

· At least thirteen landslides occurred during construction of the pipeline built by Precision for the Appalachian Gateway Project. Each of these landslides is meticulously documented in the expert report:
. “Precision was aware the project was located in an area with landslide risks and, knowing this…did not employ appropriate construction methods to reduce the number of landslides that occurred. As a result, a greater number of landslides occurred on the ROW [Right of Way] and Precision’s refusal to repair them resulted in DTI incurring the cost of repair.”
· “Fill placed by Precision in some areas contained unsuitable materials (e.g., elevated organics), and fill was not adequately compacted to provide soil stability….”
· “Knowing that there was a risk of landslides developing, Precision failed to employ earthwork methods in accordance with industry standards…. Landslides occurred due to failure to install subsurface drains in high-risk or seepage areas, failure to provide adequate surface water controls, failure to remove wood chips and other organic debris from fill slope areas, failure to properly construct ESC features, and failure to adequately compact fill.”

These are not the words of activists, or tree sitters, or affected landowners. These are the words of an engineering firm hired by Dominion! Virginia’s DEQ has turned a deaf ear to local residents who have been screaming for this project to stop and stop now.

Governor Northam has ignored tree sitters who have placed their bodies in the path of the pipeline. He has refused to honor his own campaign promise – made on video – that DEQ would do a stream-by-stream analysis of this pipeline before construction proceeds. And he has broken another campaign promise – also caught on video – that he and his wife would hold “focus groups” to address local concerns.

Meanwhile, state officials have ignored the pleas of more than one dozen elected officialsand Democratic committees who say that the Mountain Valley Pipeline (as well as the much larger Atlantic Coast Pipeline) should be stopped.

Maybe these state officials will listen to Dominion? Maybe they will be swayed by the arguments of McGuire Woods, Dominion’s attorneys, who many consider to be Virginia’s “shadow government.”

Thirteen landslides in a 55-mile project. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is almost six times that length. Do the math. And that’s just landslides.

What about sediment in streams? What about damage to farmland, damage to drinking water, damage to tourism in some of the most pristine areas of Virginia and the resulting damage to property values and the local economy.

So Governor Northam – and I cannot believe I am writing these words – maybe on this one you should listen to Dominion! Stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline before Virginia’s future – and your legacy – are drowned in a muddy landslide.

It’s never too late to do the right thing.

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MORATORIUM ON NEW GAS INFRASTRUCTURE INCLUDED IN DRAFT STATEMENT FROM ADVISORY COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s Advisory Council on Environmental Justice reached consensus May 30 on a draft statement recommending a moratorium on new gas infrastructure in the Commonwealth and calling for a stream-by-stream assessment of the impact of both the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines.

The advisory council, created by former Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2017, also said the placing of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s compressor station in Union Hill, a historic African-American community in Buckingham County, exhibits racism and maintained that the human rights of protestors — including those who have engaged in tree sits — are being violated by state and local law enforcement officials as well as the U.S. Forestry Service.

Consensus on a final draft will be worked out quickly, members said, and the language could be modified. No timetable has been set, but council members said it was important to finalize their recommendations before decisions are made by other regulatory bodies. When completed, the recommendations will be sent to Gov. Northam.

The council held its May 30 meeting in Buckingham County to give members a first-hand view of areas that will be impacted by the ACP and compressor station. It also heard concerns expressed by about 30 people during a public comment period. Matt Strickler, Secretary of Natural Resources, joined the council for its meeting.

~~ Robert Dilday, co-director, Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice

— in Buckingham, Virginia on May 31, 2018

U.S. Bank Becomes First Major Bank to Stop Financing Pipeline Construction

From an Article by EcoWatch.com, May 17, 2017

U.S. Bank has become the first major bank in the U.S. to formally exclude gas and oil pipelines from their project financing. This groundbreaking change to their Environmental Responsibility Policy was publicly announced at the annual shareholders meeting in Nashville in April.

In addition to no longer providing “project financing for the construction of oil or natural gas pipelines,” the bank has stated that relationships with their clients in the oil and gas industries will be subject to “enhanced due diligence processes.”

As recently as March 2017, U.S. Bank has renewed commitments with Energy Transfer Partners, the company constructing the Dakota Access Pipeline, and with Enbridge Energy, whose pipelines operate within Minnesota. However, advocates are hopeful that the bank’s newly released policy will limit other kinds of financing relationships with these industries.

“U.S. Bank’s new policy is an important step in protecting the environment and moving towards a fossil free future,” said Wichahpi Otto, a volunteer with the climate justice group MN350, who travelled to Nashville for the shareholders meeting. “We applaud them for responding to the community and contributing to worldwide efforts to address climate change.”

This move comes after ongoing pressure on U.S. Bank locally from MN350 and from the Minnesotans for a Fair Economy coalition, and on banks nationally from indigenous groups including Honor the Earth, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Dakota Access resistance movement.

Beginning in 2015, a regional partnership of climate, labor and indigenous rights advocates has urged that U.S. Bank divest from fossil fuels, in particular from Enbridge Energy, and move its financing into the clean energy economy. Local actions have included letter-writing, account closures and social media campaigns. In response, in May 2016 the bank made changes to their Environmental Policy restricting lending to coal.

“We applaud this progressive decision from U.S. Bank,” said Tara Houska, national campaigns director of Honor the Earth. “A strong message is being sent to the fossil fuel industry: We are consumers, we have agency and the right to know how our money is being invested. Move to a green economy and a future that does not profit off the destruction of Mother Earth and our communities.”

A national and international campaign pressuring banks to divest has been highly successful, pulling nearly $4.5 billion from financiers, and a newly launched coalition effort called Mazaska Talks has expanded this effort.

Organizations and community members say they are eager to see how U.S. Bank’s unprecedented stance can encourage movement in financing from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy.

“Confronting the climate crisis requires boldness, urgency and innovation,” said Dr. Emily Swanson, a member of MN350. “While there is more to be done, we are hopeful U.S. Bank can continue to act as an industry leader and as an ally for creating a more sustainable economy.”

See also: “The Global Fossil Fuel Divestment and Clean Energy Investment”