Big money for pipelines brings many tactics

From an Article by Sandy Housman, WVTF News, July 5, 2017

Virginia’s Director of Natural Resources has warned Dominion that state regulators will not be swayed by company requests or suggestions when deciding whether to issue permits for construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. That’s good news for pipeline opponents, but they say Dominion is using other questionable tactics at the local level as Sandy Hausman reports.

Charlie Spatz is with a non-profit in Northern Virginia called the Climate Investigations Center. He’s heard about public hearings In Buckingham County that attracted large crowds to speak against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. “Buckingham County is the site of a 57,000 horsepower compressor station, and I’ve heard concerns about noise levels and pollution,” he says.

And when the board of supervisors voted unanimously to allow the project, Spatz heard complaints from residents who wondered how that was possible.

Here, for example, is Pastor Paul Wilson, whose church sits near the pipeline’s proposed path. He attended a public hearing and left feeling angry. “I guess over a hundred people spoke against the pipeline,” he recalls. ” The board of supervisors and the people on the planning commission – they never listened to us. It was obvious from the very beginning that Dominion manipulates the whole process!”

So Spatz sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the county, asking for all correspondence with Dominion. What he found was a cordial relationship between local officials, the town’s largest employer, Kyanite Mining, and Dominion.

As early as June of 2015, Dominion was meeting with Buckingham officials at Kyanite to plan for the pipeline, followed by lunch at a local restaurant. The firm, which mines industrial minerals, could profit from a cheap supply of natural gas, and Pastor Wilson says it looks the like Kyanite will get that.

“Dominion has promised that they would give the county a tap,” Wilson says. ” A tap costs five to six million dollars.”

It’s not clear who will pay for that connection, but Chad Oba, who heads a group opposed to the pipeline in Buckingham, says it’s clear that elected officials were influenced by Dominion’s team of professional persuaders.

“You know they put these people in these positions to convince people that we’re on your side, we’re good neighbors, we want the best for you, and they get schmoozed,” she says.

Environmentalist Charlie Spatz’ FOIA request also revealed a member of the county board doing a favor for Dominion, which was hoping for approval from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation to build its pipeline across ten properties in permanent conservation easement. He reads from a letter to Supervisor Donnie Bryan from Dominion’s manager of external affairs:

“The Virginia Outdoors Foundation staff indicated that it would be helpful to hear from some of the localities to better understand the need for the project.”

To make life easy for Bryan, Dominion had written a letter for him in support of the pipeline. He was asked to put it on county letterhead and sign it. Then, Dominion would swing by to pick it up in time for the public hearing. Company spokesman Aaron Ruby sees nothing wrong with that.

“These leaders and public officials have supported the project because they believe it’s important for the economic and environmental future of the region, and of course we’ve collaborated with them in their efforts,” he says. “Every company and corporation involved in the political process works with their elected officials to achieve shared goals. That’s how the political process works.”

Maybe so, says Andy Wicks, but that doesn’t make it right. Wicks heads the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics at UVA’s Darden School of Business, and he says public officials shouldn’t be signing letters written by corporations seeking favors. “They’re supposed to be representing us.”

And when things like this happens, he adds, people begin to wonder – is this public official being paid off in some way? What benefit will he get for doing this favor?

“They’re busy, just like everybody else, but when you take shortcuts like this, it invites the kinds of questions that you’re asking, and I think they’re legitimate to be raised,” he explains. “On the one hand there’s nothing overtly wrong with sharing a letter and saying, ‘If you believe in this letter, communicate it with somebody else.’ On the other hand, why would they not themselves just send this letter. Why do they need this intermediary? It’s absolutely fine for them to take steps, but they should write what they believe. That’s why they’re being elected.”

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation had no comment on the fact that Dominion wrote a letter on behalf of a Buckingham supervisor but it got hundreds of notes opposing the pipeline – most of them form letters, presumably drafted by environmental groups. At Dominion, Aaron Ruby says that proves his point. “Every company and organization that’s involved in the political process does this,” he says.

But Charlie Spatz thinks it’s different when Dominion asks politicians to sign a letter it’s written. “What we’ve seen here is nothing like a non-profit group organizing its members to get a message to elected officials. Dominion is a private, a for-profit corporation worth billions of dollars, that needs no help getting its voice heard,” he says.

We called Buckingham Supervisor Donnie Bryan several times to ask about the letter Dominion wrote on his behalf. He did not get back to us, and no organization in Virginia tracks campaign contributions for county elections, but Dominion has something called the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Community Investment Program which gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

“We want to be a good corporate citizen,” says Dominion’s Aaron Ruby. “We want to contribute positively to all of the communities where we do business.”

Already, the program has given $10,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of Buckingham, and the firm has been known to funnel money to other cooperative communities through the Dominion Foundation, which gives away $20 million a year.

No Pipeline (MVP, ACP, etc.)

Mountain Valley Pipeline opponents target bank with latest protest

From a News Report by Joe Dashiell, WDBJ News 7, Roanoke, VA, June 27, 2017

Opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline have opened a new front in their fight against the controversial project. Tuesday afternoon, more than a dozen people protested outside the Wells Fargo Tower in downtown Roanoke.

Pipeline opponents say Wells Fargo is one of the six major banks financing construction of the natural gas pipeline. The protestors were urging customers to close their accounts.

Carolyn Reilly is a Franklin County landowner, whose property lies in the path of the proposed natural gas pipeline. “I’m here out of gratitude to someone who is saying I am choosing to move my money and close my accounts with Wells Fargo.”

The protesters were also challenging Well Fargo’s participation in the Dakota Access Pipeline. And Wells Fargo shared the following statement Tuesday evening.

“As a company committed to environmental sustainability and human rights, we respect all the differing opinions being expressed in this dispute. We are closely following the developments in this situation and are hopeful that all parties involved will work together for a peaceful and positive outcome.”

“Wells Fargo is one of 17 financial institutions involved in financing the Dakota Access Pipeline. The loans we have provided represent less than five percent of the total, and we are contractually bound to fulfill our legal obligations under the credit agreement so long as our customer continues to meet all of its terms and conditions.”

“The DAPL project was evaluated by an independent engineer to be compliant with the Equator Principles, a framework adopted by Wells Fargo in 2005 that is designed to determine, assess, and manage social and environmental risks and impacts of projects. As a result of issues that have arisen in this case, we have enhanced our due diligence in sectors subject to our Environmental and Social Risk Management policy to include more focused research into whether or not indigenous communities are impacted and/or have been properly consulted.”

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WV DEP, its chief challenged on pipeline approval

From an Article by Ken Ward, Charleston Gazette, June 9, 2017

Five local, state and national citizen groups have asked a federal appeals court to overturn the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of a state authorization for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Lawyers for the groups filed their petition for review Friday afternoon with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. Last month, DEP Secretary Austin Caperton refused to grant a hearing to environmental groups and citizens who filed an appeal after his agency approved a Clean Water Act certification for the MVP project.

In a two-paragraph letter, dated May 10, Caperton did not state a reason for his denial. The DEP did not publicly announce that decision, and agency spokesman Jake Glance did not respond to a request for an explanation or comment on Caperton’s decision.

The natural gas pipeline would run about 300 miles, from Northwestern West Virginia to Southern Virginia. It is a joint project of EQT Midstream Partners LP, Next-Era US Gas Assets LLC, WGL Midstream and Vega Midstream MVP LLC.

According to the DEP, the pipeline originates in Wetzel County and goes though Harrison, Doddridge, Lewis, Braxton, Webster, Nicholas, Greenbrier, Fayette, Summers and Monroe counties before entering Virginia.

The permit in question is a certification under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act that the pipeline activity will not violate the state’s water quality standards or stream designated uses.

In appealing the DEP’s approval to Caperton, citizens and organizations said the agency did not have enough information to draw such a conclusion.

“With the MVP proposing to cross streams more than 600 times in West Virginia alone, it’s startling the bar was set so low on information required from the applicant,” said Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, one of the groups that filed the 4th Circuit petition. “Especially for a project of this magnitude, we expect a lot more detail. Without the complete information and analysis, there’s no way that West Virginians can be assured their rivers and streams won’t pay a price.”

Unlike many other permitting decisions, an appeal of a DEP 401 certification does not go to a board like the state Environmental Quality Board, but to the agency secretary. Under the DEP’s own rules, the secretary has discretion on whether to even hold a hearing on such an appeal.

When it initially approved the pipeline’s 401 certification, the DEP issued a news release about the action and pointed members of the news media to the MVP developer’s website for “information about the potential economic benefit” of the project.

Groups filing the appeal of Caperton’s decision with the 4th Circuit include the Sierra Club, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, the Indian Creek Watershed Association, Appalachian Voices and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. The groups are represented by attorneys with Appalachian Mountain Advocates.

“This pipeline threatens to do irreparable harm to Appalachia’s treasured streams and forested hillsides, and it is crucial that the state thoroughly examine these impacts rather than rubber-stamping a project that is bad for our communities and the environment,” said Deb Self, senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign.

“State environmental regulators need to start taking their duties seriously,” said Peter Anderson, a program manager for Appalachian Voices. “They must rigorously analyze impacts on water, soil and forests, rather than taking the industry view that the permitting process is an annoying bump in the road. These agencies are public health institutions at their heart, so they should act like it.”

Pipeline Air Force on the ready

Highland County scientist leading pipeline opposition

From an Article by Geoff Hamill, Pocahontas Times, Nov. 19, 2014

A retired scientist from Highland County, Virginia, is leading a local effort to prevent construction of a large-diameter natural gas pipeline through national forests in West Virginia and Virginia. Rick Webb, of Mustoe, is a retired senior scientist with the University of Virginia. During a 30-year career in the university’s environmental science department, Webb spent a lot of time studying the forests and streams in the mountains of West Virginia and Virginia.

“I managed a program that involved monitoring the water chemistry of streams in the mountains in Virginia and West Virginia and the Central Appalachian region,” he said. “We collected samples from lots of streams and we did chemical analysis on them in our laboratory. We did a synoptic study involving close to 500 streams in 35 different counties in Virginia, and we did a lot of surveys in West Virginia.”

Dominion Resources and three energy corporation partners have proposed construction of a 550-mile, 42-inch pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina, with a 20-inch spur line to Hampton Roads, Virginia. The companies’ current proposal calls for construction through approximately 30 miles of national forest in West Virginia and Virginia. The project requires approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Several organizations have mobilized to oppose Dominion’s plan, among them the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition (DPMC), of which Webb is a founding member and coordinator. DPMC is a coalition of various groups, including the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, the Greenbrier River Watershed Association, the Sierra Club of Virginia, Wild Virginia, Highlanders for Responsible Development and several other groups.

Webb discussed why he opposes Dominion’s pipeline proposal. “I don’t believe that this project can be built without long-term degradation to this area of the world, which happens to be the best remaining wild landscape in the Eastern United States, hands-down,” he said. “It’s got the greatest biodiversity of anywhere in the Northeast. It’s the largest extent of continuous unfragmented forest and this pipeline would cut right through it. The pipeline would be the dominant feature of the landscape and it would fragment this forest. It would cause temporary and long-term damage to the streams.”

The health of Appalachian Mountain waterways is closely tied to the surrounding forests, according to Webb. “You can’t separate the forests from the streams,” he said. “These are forest streams. The fish that live in these streams, like the brook trout, are forest fish. What happens to the forest and what happens to the soil in the forest affects what happens in the streams. It’s all tied together. I don’t believe there is any mitigation that can make this project acceptable; no implementation of best management practices that will work; no adjustment in the route that will make it okay. It simply cannot be done.”

Webb said Dominion didn’t expect so much resistance from mountain communities. “I don’t think Dominion understands the determination and the depth of the opposition to this project,” he said. “I think they have been taken by surprise, particularly in the mountains. In Nelson County, Augusta County, Highland County, Pocahontas County and Randolph County, people are opposed to this project. People care about this landscape and we will do what we can to stop this project.”

Webb said Dominion’s promise to protect waterways is illusory. “They’re talking about building pipelines straight up and straight down steep mountainsides – 20 or more steep mountainsides – with high quality streams at the bottom of every one of those mountains,” he said. “The landscape is simply too steep and too rugged to do it without damage. They cannot control the runoff. They can’t have runoff control structures in place while they have that equipment on the hillsides. They use multiple bulldozers, four or five bulldozers, chained together, to hold the big trackhoes in place on the mountainside. They can’t have runoff control in place while they have that equipment there – it’s not conceivable. They cannot control runoff in that situation.”

“We’re talking about impacting a landscape that’s been set aside for future generations, for our children and their children and their children. We cannot, for the short-term profit of a private corporation, allow that to happen. This will be the last stronghold of the native brook trout. It’s going to be impacted by climate change, but this is the place it will last the longest. And they want to cross these streams one after the other and damage them. It just can’t be allowed to happen.”

Two other major natural gas pipelines have been proposed to accomplish the same purpose as Dominion’s. EQT Corporation proposed the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would run from West Virginia to North Carolina. William’s Appalachian Connector pipeline would connect gas supply areas in northern West Virginia to the company’s existing Transco pipeline in Southern Virginia. All three pipelines would transport natural gas from production fields in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio to the Atlantic Coast. But Dominion’s pipeline would have the greatest impact on protected public lands, according to Webb.

“There’s three [pipelines] on the books right now being proposed for this region, and it could be four before FERC at the same time.” he said. “The Dominion pipeline is unique in terms of the conservation lands that would be impacted. We’re talking mainly about national forests. Initially, it proposed to cross approximately 50 miles of national forest. They adjusted the route somewhat, now it may be down to 30 miles of national forest. The other pipelines cross just two or three miles of national forest, at the most. There are a lot of issues related to pipeline construction – a lot of them apply to pipelines everywhere. The amount of national forest that’s impacted is what makes the Dominion pipeline stand out.”

DPMC plans to ensure that regulatory agencies are doing their jobs. “We are opposed to this project,” said Webb. “We don’t believe it can be built in compliance with our public environmental policies and our environmental laws and regulations. Our purpose is to bring a new level of scrutiny to the regulatory review of this project, and, if the project goes forward, to its construction. We intend to become as well informed as possible about all of the laws and regulations and authorizations that this pipeline must have to proceed – and there’s a long list.”

DPMC wants corporate directors to understand their responsibility. “The Dominion people who have spoken at these open houses seem very sincere,” said Webb. “They say, ‘we have a very strong environmental ethic, we’re going to do things very carefully.’ Maybe they do, but they’re not the people doing the work. I don’t know if they have any connection to what’s happening on the ground or not. I’m sure the people in the board room won’t have any direct connection to it. Part of our task is to connect the people in the board room to what’s going on on the ground. Make them understand it and make them responsible for it. It’s not going to be okay for Dominion to say, ‘that’s just a rogue sub-contractor.’ We’re going to make sure that they’re not going to get away with it.”

If the Dominion project is approved for construction, DPMC has a plan to monitor construction from the ground and air. “Our surveillance will involve water quality downstream,” said Webb. “We’re working with other groups to make that happen. We also have what we call the pipeline air force. We have four planes and four pilots. They’re helping us with case studies. We’re getting aerial photography of other projects that have gone forward. If this project goes forward, despite all of our concerns and despite the environmental review process that should not allow it to go forward, we plan to be in the air watching this project very carefully with video cameras and still cameras. We will use the evidence to go to the agencies, we will go to the courts, we will do what we can to prevent serial damage, as they go forward. We fully expect to see egregious damage, based on what we’ve seen at other pipeline projects.”

“Our own governor [Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe] has pre-empted the process by declaring it’s a good project before anybody’s even looked at it,” said Webb. “He did not even consult with his own Secretary of Natural Resources or any of the agencies that are there for him to work with to make sure that environmental policies and laws are implemented. He made a decision without consulting with these people and to me, that’s unethical.”

To download a slideshow presentation produced by Webb, “Pipeline Across the Alleghenies – Wild Landscape at Risk,” see protecthighland.org on the Internet.

(See “video section” or “you-tube” to view a statement from Rick Webb)

See also: www.mareproject.org