Offshore wind farm near Block Island, R.I.

Essay by Christine Todd Whitman and Leon Panetta, POLITICO, January 28, 2022

When world leaders gathered last fall at COP26, it was billed as the “world’s last best chance” to save the planet from the climate crisis. The conference ended with real uncertainty as to whether comprehensive action will be taken, here and abroad, to avoid catastrophe. Fortunately, one of the best opportunities for progress is all around us: the waves, wind and water along the U.S.’s nearly 100,000 miles of coastline.

As the engine of our planet’s weather and climate systems, the ocean’s potential as a climate solution is as vast as the ocean itself. In fact, ocean-based climate action can provide 20 percent of the emissions reductions needed to achieve global targets to limit climate change and its effects. According to the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, “reductions of this magnitude are equivalent to the annual emissions from all coal-fired power plants worldwide or taking 2.5 billion cars off the road.”

Here are some key opportunities:

>>> Boost Offshore Renewables: Offshore renewables, like wind and wave energy, can help power the nation while cutting emissions. These sources of clean energy can serve as part of a just and equitable transition by providing economic benefits and abundant electricity to the communities that have suffered the most under climate change.

>>> Reduce Emissions from Shipping: We also need to look to the ocean to significantly reduce contributors of greenhouse gas emissions, such as maritime shipping, which generates more emissions than airlines. The administration, working with ports and the shipping industry, can implement strategies that will move us to zero-carbon shipping by 2050 to drastically reduce the climate contributions of cargo ships and freighters at sea. Infrastructure improvements at ports, fleet upgrades and alternative fuels can all be part of the effort.

>>> Rebuild Coastal Ecosystems: By protecting the ocean, we also enable the ocean to protect us through natural climate mitigation. Carbon-rich coastal environments like salt marshes, seagrass meadows and mangrove forests all naturally absorb carbon up to four times more effectively than trees on land. And when we conserve these habitats for their climate benefits, we are also protecting natural coastal infrastructure that will safeguard communities against storms and rising sea levels. This is particularly crucial for supporting marginalized communities, including low-income neighborhoods that were built in flood zones and are on the front lines of the climate crisis.

Washington has never before had a comprehensive ocean climate plan that weaves these efforts together. In order to realize the ocean’s potential to curb the climate crisis, the White House must marshal agencies across the government, so they are working in concert toward the same goals. President Joe Biden has taken a series of promising steps throughout his first year in office, but the U.S. still needs a coordinated federal strategy to turn this momentum into lasting results. The White House, to its credit, recently held itsfirst meeting of the congressionally authorized Ocean Policy Committee and made a commitment to develop a new cross-cutting strategy.

As the committee puts pen to paper, it should not waste the opportunity to map out the best strategies that embrace the ocean as a climate solution. From our time as Cabinet officials in previous administrations, we’ve been in the trenches on policymaking and know it is critical to have an overarching strategy rather than letting each agency chart its own path. A coordinated policy approach is more effective because it allows the administration to identify big picture goals and eliminate duplicative efforts.

Today, we work with a bipartisan effort to catalyze action toward meaningful ocean policy reform called the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative. Alongside over 100 ocean policy leaders — ranging from outdoor recreation brands to professional surfing organizations — we stand ready to join with the administration to advance a comprehensive ocean climate action plan.

It’s true that political disagreement has delayed climate action for far too long. While we come from different parties, we’ve found common cause on ocean policy and see it as a particularly fruitful area of bipartisan cooperation.

After all, our ocean and coastlines are vital to our economic and national security. They are also the foundation for what we call the “Blue Economy,” which acknowledges the wealth of marine resources — from sustainable fishing to aquaculture to shipping to tourism — that must be balanced sustainably to support jobs and economic growth. With the Blue Economy expected to grow at twice the rate of the overall economy, it is hard to imagine a better return on investment than securing the health and future of our ocean.

Now more than ever, we need to be taking every opportunity to avoid climate catastrophe — and the clock is ticking. From Category 5 hurricanes on the East Coast, to wildfires out West, to devastating tornadoes in the Midwest, we’re seeing the effects of climate change every day. Our country is poised like never before to advance bold climate action, and a coordinated ocean climate action plan can help turn that tide.

The ocean makes up over 70 percent of our planet. We believe it can help save the planet itself.

NOTE ~ Christine Todd Whitman is the former governor of New Jersey, former EPA administrator under President George W. Bush, and serves as co-chair of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Leadership Council. ALSO, Leon Panetta served as the CIA director and defense secretary under President Barack Obama, as White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, and was a former co-chair of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Leadership Council.

Building pipelines is like burying our heads in the sand?

From an Article by Ivy Main, Power for the People VA, November 19, 2021

This past Election Day was a tough day for climate advocates.

After two years of historic progress that included passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), the centerpiece of the Virginia Commonwealth’s plan to decarbonize the electric sector by 2050, voters handed a narrow victory to its critics. Republicans will take over as governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and, barring any surprises in two recounts, the House of Delegates.

During the campaign, former Carlyle Group CEO Glenn Youngkin criticized the VCEA for raising rates and putting “our entire energy grid at risk.” While largely supportive of solar and wind (especially offshore wind, which he “wholly supports”), Youngkin also argued for more natural gas to feed “the rip-roaring economy that I’m going to build.” This is, essentially, the old “all of the above” strategy we hoped had been buried for good, coupled with unfounded fear-mongering about power outages.

On the bright side, Governor-elect Youngkin has acknowledged that climate change is real and is causing damage here in Virginia. At the same time, he supposedly told a Norfolk State University audience in October that he didn’t know what is causing climate change. It seems likely this was a clumsy lie prompted by political expedience, rather than a reflection of actual ignorance. Two years ago Youngkin touted Carlyle Group’s record as “the first major private investment firm to operate on a carbon-neutral basis.” That’s not something you do just to be on trend.

So yes, Youngkin knows that increasing greenhouse gas emissions are driving the warming of the planet, and at Carlyle he was willing to do something about it. But now that he’s a politician, Youngkin is embracing natural gas in a way that suggests he’d rather ignore the truth about methane than take a stance unpopular in his party. Heck, for all we know, he may now even subscribe to the plan recently laid out by U.S. Senate Republicans to address climate change by increasing natural gas production and exports.

The fact that we have no idea where Youngkin stands on the need for climate solutions is only one part of the problem facing climate activists in Virginia’s upcoming legislative session. The bigger problem is that a lot of our Republican legislators are outright hostile to climate science and Virginia’s framework for the energy transition. These folks are loaded for bear, and they will use their narrow win to flood the House with bills aimed at rolling back the energy transition.

In addition to VCEA, the Republican hit list includes the Clean Energy and Community Preparedness Act, which directed Virginia to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI); the Clean Car Standard, which promotes sales of electric vehicles; and the Commonwealth Clean Energy Policy, which makes the transition to a net-zero-energy economy official state policy.

Whether these bills will pass the House is less certain, given the benefits these laws are already delivering. The VCEA spurred “incredible growth” in solar installations, making Virginia fourth in the nation for new solar generation in 2020, and the world’s biggest offshore wind blade manufacturer just announced plans for a facility in Portsmouth, Virginia. Does anyone really want to stop that momentum? Tens of millions of dollars are already flowing to climate adaptation projects in coastal areas thanks to RGGI’s carbon allowance auctions. Pulling the plug on that cash flow would hurt Republicans representing the area.

Notwithstanding the rhetoric, the VCEA is good for business and consumers. Ratepayers will save money through the mandated closure of uneconomic coal, oil and biomass plants, and by the removal of barriers to distributed renewable energy generation. Solar’s low cost positions it to overtake fossil fuels as the go-to generation source for utilities, but the VCEA creates the market certainty that attracts investment. And offshore wind — the most expensive part of the VCEA, but the part Youngkin apparently likes — is also popular on both sides of the aisle as an engine of investment and job creation.

That doesn’t mean anti-VCEA bills won’t pass the House; being bad policy is never enough to kill legislation, or even stop people who ought to know better from voting for it. In 2019, an anti-RGGI bill from Del. Charles Poindexter (R-Franklin) passed both the House and Senate on party-line votes. It was prevented from taking effect only thanks to a veto from Governor Northam. Today, I can count very few House Republicans who won’t toe the same party line.

With Democrats still in charge of the Senate, Youngkin isn’t likely to find a RGGI or VCEA repeal on his desk. Creating an energy transition framework was one of the Democrats’ biggest successes in the past two years, and protecting that success will be a party priority.

But there are many ways Republicans can undercut climate action. They might attract just enough Democratic votes with bills that, for example, grant exemptions for powerful industries that have friends among Senate Democrats. They could also use the budget process to undermine the transition by starving agencies and grant programs of funding.

If politics doesn’t completely get in the way, though, there should be room for consensus on some new areas of progress. Highly efficient schools with solar roofs save money for taxpayers; electric school buses are good for children’s health; solar on abandoned mine sites promise employment to residents of Southwest Virginia.

Beyond the General Assembly, executive agencies have had the job of implementing all the various parts of the RGGI program and the VCEA. And the agencies, of course, answer to the governor. The Department of Environmental Quality will have signed off — or not — on the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s permits before Younkin takes office, but after that, we can expect the VA DEQ to return to being the easy-permitting, lax-enforcing agency it was of old.

As for the Department of Energy, that agency has been going gangbusters turning Virginia into a clean energy leader and promoting new models like brownfields redevelopment and clean energy financing. Hopefully those efforts offer so much in the way of economic opportunities that a businessman like Youngkin will want them to continue.

But that, like so much else, remains to be seen.

Wild & Wonderful West Virginia, if we can keep it?

From the Letter of Leslee McCarty, The Beckley Register Herald, March 27, 2021

The Greenbrier River is one of West Virginia’s crown jewels. Why risk ramming the 42-inch Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) across it so the big out-of-state energy corporation can profit?

After the courts threw out MVP’s slapdash plans to dig a trench across the Greenbrier, the MVP is asking the state to approve – six years into the project – a new plan to bore under the river.

The bore at Pence Springs would use half a million gallons of water mixed with drilling mud and take up to four months to complete. It will be the longest bore on the MVP – nine times the average. If any of that drilling mud gets into the river, it would be a disaster for both tourism – the one industry offering real hope for the area – and the health of the river itself.

MVP has a terrible record. State officials in West Virginia and Virginia have fined the project more than $2.7 million because – as the Roanoke Times put it – “construction on steep mountainsides has led to muddy runoff, and to hundreds of violations of environmental regulations meant to control erosion and sedimentation.”

Environmental Hydrologist Dr. Jacob Hileman says the MVP would have more impact on forests and streams than any other gas pipeline. He called the MVP “an unprecedented and highly consequential experiment.”

Why do we have to risk the best things we have? Will we continue to allow West Virginia to be a sacrifice zone for big energy corporations, or will we protect our vulnerable water resources? Sadly, the Legislature seems to want to ignore the health and safety of our water. I hope the WV Department of Environmental Protection doesn’t ignore MVP’s impact on the Greenbrier River.

Let’s stop this misguided pipeline project now and get to work on renewable energy projects for a sustainable, clean energy future!

Leslee McCarty, Founding Member,
Greenbrier River Watershed Association
Lewisburg, WV

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Final remaining tree sitter removed from MVP site, arrested

From a Newscast of WDBJ News 7, Roanoke, VA on March 24, 2021

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) – According to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s office, the final remaining tree sitter has been removed from the site of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Alexander Lowe, 24 of Worcester, Massachusetts, was arrested and charged with Obstruction of Justice and Interfering with the Property Rights of Another. He is being held in the Montgomery County Jail with no bond.

The Virginia State Police worked from a crane-suspended basket to safely remove the man from the “sleeping dragon” and the tree. He was checked by medics after being lowered to the ground. The sheriff’s office said he received no injuries during the extraction.

Tree sitters understand that the intrusive large 42 inch pipe is not needed

Lowe was the lone remaining tree sitter Wednesday after all others were removed Tuesday from the site on Yellow Finch Lane.

Law enforcement worked Tuesday to negotiate with the tree sitters, who had been protesting the building of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for more than two years. One tree sitter, a 23-year-old woman from Vermont, was arrested Tuesday.

Regional Initiatives Across the United States

From an Article by Sarah Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury, March 17, 2021

The $43 million was “in the state’s hot little hands,” Mike Dowd told the group. So what next?

That was the question facing not only Mike Dowd, director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Air Division, but also a collection of developers, state officials and environmental and low-income advocacy groups who had gathered over Zoom.

All were focused on the best uses of that $43 million in carbon money, the first round of funds Virginia had received through its participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an 11-state agreement that puts a price on the carbon emissions that are driving climate change, requires power plants to pay that price and then channels the proceeds back to the states.

Most of that funding will eventually be paid for by customers of the state’s electric utilities, which are allowed under state law to pass on the costs of carbon allowances to customers, with no extra returns for investors. State officials had conservatively projected annual proceeds from RGGI’s carbon auctions to be in the range of $106 to $109 million. But with allowances trading at $7.60 per short ton of emissions at this March’s quarterly auction, actual revenues now look to be much higher, amounting to perhaps as much as $174 million annually if prices hold.

What to do with that major new stream of income — especially in a pandemic year when purses are tight — has been the preoccupation of dozens of Virginia officials this winter.

The law passed by the General Assembly in 2020 authorizing participation in RGGI spells out certain high-level priorities for the funds: 50 percent for low-income energy efficiency programs, 45 percent for a new Community Flood Preparedness Fund to assist communities affected by recurrent flooding and sea level rise, 3 percent for DEQ to oversee Virginia’s participation in RGGI and carry out statewide climate change planning and the remainder for other administrative work.

But between those goals and projects on the ground lies a lot of space. Should the state be creating new programs or beefing up existing ones? Should certain housing types or certain geographic areas get priority — particularly given new equity commitments designed to ensure that benefits are felt across the board?

“There’s not a whole lot of direction there, so I think it’s really important … to think about the spirit of the legislation and try to address some of the underlying causes,” said Dawone Robinson, director of an energy affordability program run by the Natural Resources Defense Council and a member of one of the advisory boards Virginia convened to decide how to spend its carbon dollars.

Compounding the challenge has been time constraints: Virginia’s fiscal year ends on June 30. With the first auction funds arriving this March, agencies have only a few short months to spend them. While RGGI funds are nonreverting, meaning agencies won’t lose them at the end of the fiscal year, most are eager to get the funds out of the door immediately.

“If we’d had our druthers, we would have been working on this last year,” said Carmen Bingham of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, who is also serving on the same advisory board as Robinson. Between slowdowns due to COVID-19 and the RGGI law not going into effect until July 1, however, the agencies that will receive the bulk of the carbon funds — the Department of Housing and Community Development, which will oversee the low-income energy efficiency funds, and the Department of Conservation and Recreation, which will oversee the Flood Preparedness Fund — have been forced to move quickly to narrow down their priorities.

“We’re in this very weird place of having to work frantically in order to come up with how do we spend this first round of money,” said Bingham. But, she added, “that’s the hand we’re dealt and the cards we’ve got to play.”

Low-income energy efficiency in Virginia

From the beginning, Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration zeroed in on the possibilities the funds earmarked under the RGGI law for low-income energy efficiency offered for affordable housing.

Low-income tenants ideally would be able to rent “more highly efficient properties” as a result of RGGI funding, then-Deputy Secretary of Commerce and Trade Angela Navarro said during a webinar last July. An administration memo similarly identified “deeper levels of energy efficiency” in affordable housing and upgrades to public housing as priorities.

Advocates, however, pointed in a different direction: weatherization, a set of improvements to a building that cut down on energy waste and consequently tend to lower electric bills.

The federal government has funded weatherization programs for low-income households since the 1970s, but federal program guidelines strictly define what falls under the weatherization umbrella. Improvements like roof or wall repairs that are deemed health and safety issues don’t qualify, even if they are fixes that have to occur before weatherization can be done. When weatherization providers encounter these issues, they have to walk away, creating what’s called a “deferral.”

In Virginia, those number in the hundreds: Janaka Casper, CEO of Community Housing Partners, the state’s largest weatherization provider, said that as of 2019 his organization had recorded 525 deferrals.

In practice, that has meant that “the homes that are most in need of weatherization services can’t be worked on,” said Chelsea Harnish, executive director of the Virginia Energy Efficiency Council. “This is housing stock that is in desperate need. This could be a hole in the roof. It could be a hole in the floor. To me that directly goes to energy efficiency.”

To many advocates, who have been asked by the Department of Housing and Community Development how its portion of the RGGI money — which this fiscal year will amount to $21.7 million — should be spent, the deferrals were a top priority. Not only did they represent an identified need, but they offered the opportunity to address some of the commonwealth’s most vulnerable populations, including historically economically disadvantaged and minority communities.

“From a sheer climate perspective, it has often been the preferred route to tackle the low-hanging fruit,” said Robinson. “That’s not low-income housing. That’s not rental housing.”

But policymakers must “look at the totality of benefits that can be achieved,” he insisted. “If you value equity, what is the cost of achieving racial equity? If you value increasing indoor air quality, what is the value of human health?” he asked. “These are invaluable measures that aren’t addressed and aren’t calculated in a traditional cost-benefit (analysis).”

As the Department of Housing and Community Development’s RGGI advisory group met throughout the winter, weatherization slowly slid onto the priority list. This Monday, the group signed off on a recommendation for how this year’s carbon funds should be spent: 60 percent on weatherization and 40 percent on efforts to increase energy efficiency for affordable housing through the state’s Affordable and Special Needs Housing Program.

Advocates like Bingham said the split bridged the state’s immediate needs and longer-term ones. Weatherization “has that immediate impact that we can actually see, whereas housing projects are going to take awhile. They’re not going to be as quick to get a benefit right away,” she said.

…. Part 2 scheduled to appear next ……
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Dominion’s Whitehouse solar farm in Louisa County generates 20 MW on a 250 acre site

Just above the North Carolina border, in the heart of Southside Virginia, Halifax’s sunshine and abundant lands yielded some of the country’s largest crops of brightleaf tobacco. Mild and fragrant, the yellow-leaved variety sometimes known as “golden tobacco” sparked awe among visitors to the county’s auction warehouses and brought wealth pouring into the county. It was, the local historical society would later recall, the golden age of Halifax.

Today, the landscape is far different. The population has shrunk and is aging. South Boston, once an independent city that until the Great Depression was the second-biggest brightleaf market in the country, reverted to a town in 1995 after ongoing fiscal struggles. Tobacco is a shadow of its former glory.

Halifax, though, still has the two resources that once put it on the map: sunshine and abundant land. Together, they have made the county one of the most attractive in Virginia for solar developers looking to convert vast swathes of agricultural and forest lands into fields of solar panels capable of providing the thousands of megawatts of power needed for the 100 percent renewable grid lawmakers have pledged to create by 2050.

In Halifax, that looks like a sort of 21st-century gold rush. Over the past five years, the county has seen proposals for roughly a dozen large-scale solar farms. Eight projects covering some 5,500 acres have been approved, and County Administrator Scott Simpson said there’s room for more.

“The infrastructure that’s in place in Halifax as far as the power infrastructure that’s owned by the power companies is robust enough to accept more energy into that grid,” he said. And “Halifax has a lot of land that’s available around that infrastructure.”

Throughout Virginia, “we now see an increase of activity from larger players in the development game, including national or multinational companies,” said Matthew Gooch, an attorney with Richmond-based energy law firm Reisinger Gooch. “Those with the sophistication and know-how are entering the Virginia market given the certainty of demand for these projects.”

For large-scale solar, though, demand means land. And as the pace of development accelerates, Virginians will have to grapple with major changes to the Old Dominion’s landscape. Compared to coal and natural gas plants that emit pollution that is dangerous to human health, contributes to climate change and disproportionately affects low-income and minority communities, solar installations are low impact. But even advocates concede they have a larger geographic footprint, and tensions exist between rural areas that see themselves as bearing the burdens of the solar buildout and the urban areas that drive demand for renewables.

“The reality is there’s going to be a lot of solar going in — like, a lot,” said Jonah Fogel, a program manager with the University of Virginia’s Environmental Resilience Institute who has studied the overlap between the state’s renewables goals and local land use concerns. “For the average person driving down the roads, they’re going to be seeing energy in their life in a way that hasn’t happened before.”

A transition already underway

Virginia’s landmark Clean Economy Act of 2020 committed the state to an ambitious future of renewables rather than the fossil fuels it has long extracted from its southwestern mines and piped in from the shale fields. But for solar, the biggest changes came from a lesser-known package of laws that attempt to resolve growing tensions between rural areas and the solar developers increasingly flocking to them.

“We generally viewed solar with a jaundiced eye,” King and Queen County Administrator Tom Swartzwelder told more than 200 attendees at Virginia’s second Clean Energy Summit this October. “Like, ‘Well, that’s great, we’re going to get this 2,000 acre solar farm, and it’s going to support a new Amazon facility somewhere in Northern Virginia, and they’re going to have $1 billion of (capital expenditures) for this facility and 10,000 jobs, and we’re going to have a solar facility.’”

Unlike most other renewables, utility-scale solar was already on the upswing in Virginia prior to the VCEA’s passage. By the end of 2019, according to one developer’s calculation, plans had been announced for more than 17 gigawatts of solar energy in the commonwealth, most of it by non-utility developers. The Department of Environmental Quality’s permit by rule program, which reviews solar projects of between 5 and 150 megawatts, had seen applications grow from one in 2015 to more than 70 notices of intent in 2020.

Consequently, the VCEA’s mandate that by 2035 electric utilities Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Company put forward plans for 16.7 gigawatts of new solar and onshore wind — the equivalent of nearly seven Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farms — proved one of the least debated portions of the bill.

“The utility-scale sector was already robust. The VCEA just matched that,” said David Murray, executive director of the Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia and Virginia chapter of the Solar Energy Industries Association, one of the biggest players in Virginia’s renewables sphere.

Still, as solar companies sought land across Virginia for their projects, counties began to balk. The rule of thumb given current technology is that for every megawatt of power, roughly 10 acres is required. DEQ’s permit by rule coordinator, Mary “Beth” Major, has calculated that the 50 projects already permitted by the department represent 27,000 acres of solar development. If all 70 projects in the program’s queue go forward, that figure will rise to almost 100,000 acres.

While some of those projects are likely to fail, others are certain to take their place. As it has for wind and energy storage, the VCEA has locked in demand for large-scale solar. Carveouts in the law requiring 35 percent of all new solar to come from non-utility developers also guarantees that while Dominion and Appalachian Power will be the primary offtakers of the resource, they won’t be the only ones in the game. Intended to reduce utility costs that could drive up customers’ bills, these provisions are in line with regulators’ preference for power purchase agreements over utility construction, which the State Corporation Commission says “provides significant safeguards for customers.”

In their earliest plans for how they will comply with the VCEA, Dominion and Appalachian have signaled their embrace of third-party development. Of the nearly 500 megawatts of solar Dominion proposed this October, more than 80 percent will come from non-utility companies. Appalachian Power’s plan would source half its first tranche of projects from third parties.

Whether the full 16.7 gigawatts will ultimately need to be built out remains a matter of debate. As was the case with offshore wind, the question of whether the Clean Economy Act’s declaration that 16.7 gigawatts of solar is in the public interest is a mandate for the commission to approve all solar projects up to that threshold remains unresolved. As Assistant Attorney General Mitch Burton noted during hearings on Dominion’s long-range plan this October, “Any commission determination over whether a public interest declaration equals a build mandate has significant implications for future customer bills.”

‘I’ve never seen anything move that quickly’

Even before the VCEA threw Virginia’s weight behind solar, the amount of land the projects required made Southside counties in particular nervous. The former tobacco- and textile-producing region has proven highly attractive to developers for its cheap, abundant land and large transmission lines that provide easy access to the electric grid. But its leaders feared losing too much land that they relied on for revenue and jobs.

“That’s land that will be out of production for agriculture or timber production for at least a generation,” said Simpson.

Solar developers and advocates argued tax revenues from solar farms far outstripped those from agriculture or timber. But many rural counties such as Halifax and King and Queen felt the arrangement was far from equitable. State solar incentives granted developers an 80 percent reduction in local property taxes and required that any projects larger than 25 megawatts be taxed according to the local real estate tax rate instead of the generally much higher machinery and tools tax rate.

“Over a cycle of 35 to 45 years, it really did not offset the impacts of solar,” said Simpson. “We’re giving up our natural resources, our land, and we’re not being compensated properly for it. And we felt like there should be a lot more equity there.”

As the 2020 General Assembly session drew near, the counties found themselves with unexpected bargaining power. The new Democratic majorities pushing for clean energy action needed solar development to not only continue but accelerate, and many projects were finding that the main bottleneck they faced was local approvals. Developers too were eager for a solution to smooth the path forward.

Three key laws ultimately emerged. One, known as the revenue share bill, allows localities to replace their machinery and tools tax for solar with an energy tax of up to $1,400 per megawatt for a project. A second reduces the machinery and tools tax exemption over time. The third allows virtually all localities to negotiate siting agreements with solar developers that can include incentives related to broadband or other projects already in local budget or capital improvement plans.

“We wanted to empower counties to develop the right set of tools to make these projects work if they want them,” said Drew Price, managing director of Hexagon Power, which is currently developing 10 solar projects in Virginia. The new laws, he said, have “enabled projects that were previously struggling to find the right set of agreements to make it a compelling local economic development opportunity.”

Local governments have been quick to flex their new power. Surry County has used the revenue sharing law to strike a deal with Spring Grove Solar. Others like Sussex have followed suit. A tool being developed by the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy and the UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center will also soon let localities weigh the financial impacts of the revenue sharing route versus the reduced machinery and tools tax exemptions.

“We have seen in the last five months tens of millions of dollars through the siting agreements being pledged,” Swartzwelder, the King and Queen County administrator, told Clean Economy Summit attendees in October. “In my tenure, I’ve never seen anything move that quickly to pump revenue into rural Virginia.”

Balancing conservation with carbon cuts

Even as many local governments’ concerns about revenues have eased — although not disappeared; Simpson for one said he still doesn’t think counties are getting “the full value” of solar developments — land conservation concerns remain.

“When I’m looking at siting, and this has to do with any project … these lands are oftentimes the same lands that are providing us our natural resource benefits, our ecological system benefits,” said Dan Holmes, director of state policy for the Piedmont Environmental Council.

Under Gov. Ralph Northam, Virginia has placed an increased emphasis on conservation. The governor has set a goal of protecting the top 10 percent of the state’s “high conservation value lands” and in October 2019 established a special cabinet to address the issue by executive order. The state’s ConserveVirginia mapping tool is also regularly touted by the administration as a new frontier in state-level conservation efforts.

So what happens when the state’s two goals — solar development and land conservation — collide?

That’s increasingly likely to happen, said Fogel of the Environmental Resilience Institute: “As time goes on, we’re going to see upwards of 1 percent of Virginia’s land area taken up by solar.”

Conservationists fear that those commitments will chip away at the commonwealth’s valuable resources, ranging from concentrations of high-quality agricultural lands to forests that help prevent erosion and absorb the very carbon in the atmosphere that the renewables transition is trying to combat. Holmes pointed to the planned Cricket solar project in Culpeper, which was withdrawn in 2019, as an example: 75 percent of the land it was planned to cover is identified as top-priority land for conservation, he said.

Who is in the driver’s seat when it comes to solar land use decisions also remains murky. With their zoning and permitting powers, local governments are often the primary assessors of a tract of land’s best use, but their considerations tend to stop at the county line. State-level reviews do occur through DEQ’s permit-by-rule process, or other approvals overseen by the State Corporation Commission or DMME, but all are project-specific rather than offering a broad framework for new development.

Even a complete picture of what solar is being developed and where is lacking. Because projects can follow multiple permitting routes, information about what’s in the pipeline is scattered between agencies. A recently launched dashboard by the public-private SHINE partnership between Southside Virginia Community College and MDV-SEIA has aimed to fill the gap but operates outside the auspices of government.

Funding is one impediment. Despite the explosive growth in solar projects, DEQ’s permit by rule process continues to be overseen by a single full-time employee and is underfunded, with fees unchanged since 2012. Amendments to the regulations that govern the program still need Northam’s signature to go into effect.

The conservation question, then, may point to a broader question likely to dog legislators in coming years: Who is at the helm of the clean energy transition?

“It’s going to require a lot of cooperation,” said Bill Shobe, director of the Weldon Cooper Center at UVA. “One thing the General Assembly is probably going to have to tackle this year is what sort of administrative locus on state government should have the responsibility.”

(Second in a five-part series on the VA commonwealth’s transition to a carbon-free electric grid. Tomorrow: The push to ramp up distributed solar.)

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Challenges of off-shore wind installations for clean energy

From an Article by Sarah Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury, November 30, 2020

Maybe, if you squint really hard and the skies are clear, you might be able to convince yourself that you see them, out on the horizon: two turbines spinning far offshore of Virginia Beach.

You can’t, of course — the distance to the Dominion Energy-owned offshore wind outpost is too great. Bill Murray, a senior executive with Dominion, describes it this way: Imagine, he says, that the USS Wisconsin, a World War II-era battleship now docked at Norfolk, were to be beached at Sandbridge and from there fire its 16-inch guns, capable of traveling 21 miles. “Those guns could not hit these turbines,” said Murray.

Until recently, Virginia’s offshore wind dreams seemed to many an equally long shot. Dominion’s two test turbines, known as the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Pilot, were a decade in the making. During that time offshore wind boomed in Europe and China, but the U.S., preoccupied with the glut of natural gas unlocked by the shale revolution, made few inroads into the technology. Rhode Island’s Block Island wind farm was the nation’s first offshore wind venture in state waters; Dominion’s CVOW pilot 27 miles off the coast is the first in federal waters.

Today, however, U.S. enthusiasm for natural gas is wavering, and offshore wind has seen a dramatic upswing in interest. Roughly a dozen major offshore wind projects have been announced along the East Coast with the potential to provide 30 gigawatts of energy to residents of the Atlantic seaboard. Much of the activity has occurred in the maritime states of New England and the upper mid-Atlantic, especially Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey. The farther south you go, the less the idea seems to have caught on.

Virginia is a major exception. Here, offshore wind has become the most ambitious and expensive part of the state’s plan to meet Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s goal of achieving a carbon-free electric grid by 2050. Last December, Dominion announced plans to build the nation’s largest offshore wind farm in its federal lease area off Virginia Beach at an estimated cost of $8 billion. Wind developer Avangrid, which is behind the Kitty Hawk project in North Carolina, is also eyeing the state as a possible destination for its power, although no contracts have been signed.

“Electrically, the easiest place for us to connect is in Virginia Beach,” said Eric Thumma, Avangrid’s senior director of new business for offshore wind.

When Democrats took the majority in both houses of the General Assembly in 2020, they came in with the desire to remake Virginia’s electric grid. Offshore wind quickly became the most controversial part of their proposals due to its cost and the profits the politically powerful Dominion stood to make from its development. The Virginia Clean Economy Act’s declaration that 5.2 gigawatts of the resource — more than all of the state’s nuclear units and its largest gas-fired plant combined — is in the public interest provoked a bitter fight that continues to divide Democrats.

Tensions only increased after a ProPublica-Richmond Times-Dispatch investigation earlier this fall uncovered a last-minute change to the law that authorizes Dominion to spend an extra $2.5 billion on its offshore enterprise. Depending on who you ask, the VCEA is either another utility giveaway or a vital part of a clean energy portfolio that will act as an engine for economic growth.

Much of the uneasiness over offshore wind comes down to its cost. Because Dominion is in the generation as well as transmission and distribution business, it reaps profits from building things — and the bigger the project, the greater the profits. At an estimated $8 billion, CVOW will be the largest it’s ever undertaken. A second wind farm of equal size would add billions more to the bottom line.

Offshore wind is necessary, Dominion executives say. “We simply can’t rely on solar alone or energy efficiency alone to get us to a carbon-free grid,” said Katharine Bond, the company’s vice president of public policy and state affairs. Industry experts agree wind is an ideal complement to solar because it tends to peak at night and in the winter, when solar is at its lowest. And for Dominion, whose Virginia territory is less well suited to onshore wind than the mountaintop ridges enjoyed by Appalachian Power, that leaves offshore wind as the primary solution.

“A carbon-free grid has to be a more diverse grid because of the intermittency of renewables,” said Murray. “There’s a tendency a little bit in energy policy to say, ‘OK, solar right now is the cheapest renewable, let’s just do all solar.’ And more incremental energy between noon and five is at some point not helpful.”

But while few supporters of weaning Virginia’s grid off carbon think offshore wind shouldn’t be part of the portfolio, many caution that Dominion shouldn’t be given carte blanche on spending.

Regulators’ ability to review offshore wind costs remains unclear. The VCEA includes language indicating the commission should sign off on CVOW costs unless certain specific conditions aren’t met, but even State Corporation Commissioners seemed unsure during hearings this October about how restrictive the law is. “What’s the play in the joints that is left after need and cost have been essentially predetermined?” Judge Mark Christie asked at one point.

Still, many clean energy advocates say regulators retain ultimate oversight. The Clean Economy Act’s language favoring renewables is “an expression of the General Assembly that they support this type of generation technology, but it’s not a mandate for the commission to approve any particular project,” energy attorney Will Reisinger told regulators during the same hearings. In an extended legal argument touching on the law’s history and wording, Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Will Cleveland said “the commission retains ultimate authority over whether a specific proposed offshore wind project’s costs are reasonable and prudent.”

Whether regulators will agree is a question several months from being answered.

Dominion Energy is at the helm — but not alone

Energy issues, of course, have always been intricately intertwined with economic ones. Dominion has “been in the economic development business for decades,” said Murray. “Electric utilities are for economic development. In a way it’s altruistic, in a way it’s self-serving because any type of economic development plugs into the grid.”

But offshore wind takes the connection to a new level. Virtually all of the discussion and work surrounding Virginia’s wind goals center not on energy, but on the economy.

Part of that focus is due to the high threshold for entry into offshore wind development. Because the investments required for the technology are so high and only a limited number of government leases for sites are available, the industry’s pool of players is small.

In Virginia right now, Dominion is at the helm. The utility is the only company that owns a lease in federal waters off the state’s coast. And unlike other utilities to the north, which have relied on non-utilities to develop projects that they then acquire power from, Dominion is actively involved in not only developing but building offshore wind, and it has indicated in its long-range planning that it’s interested in developing more than the CVOW project, and potentially all 5.2 gigawatts of the offshore target.

Still, other companies like Avangrid and Danish firm Ørsted, which partnered with Dominion on the CVOW pilot, have signaled strong interest in Virginia. Ørsted has leased 40 acres at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal, and Thumma said Avangrid, which opened an office in Virginia Beach this fall, is “open to lots of different opportunities.” Siemens Gamesa has also publicly said Hampton Roads is among the locations it’s considering for a turbine manufacturing facility.

“One of the key elements of getting a project done is making sure you have an offtaker,” said Bruce Burcat, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition. “And what the VCEA does, just like similar types of statutes in states like Maryland or New Jersey or Delaware or Pennsylvania, is there is now a market for the offtake of the energy.”

Still, all eyes are on Dominion. How the utility navigates the state and federal permitting processes it has to undergo to get the full CVOW project underway will provide a template for other companies interested in Virginia who may be wary to put down money in these early months.

“There’s going to be a reticence to invest until we actually see projects and steel in the waters,” said Thumma.

Limited number of on-shore wind locations

The VCEA doesn’t limit wind development to offshore. Onshore wind is folded into the 16,100 megawatt and 600 megawatt targets set for Dominion and Appalachian Power to meet by 2035, and both welcomed proposals for onshore projects this summer.

Still, unlike the flat and windy Midwest, Virginia is less suited to onshore wind, with the most promising areas located along its western ridges in Appalachian Power territory. “One of the biggest challenges with Virginia and onshore wind is the wind resources are located in the most difficult terrain,” said Director of Mines, Minerals and Energy John Warren. “There’s a limited amount of project sites that really fit for large utility-scale onshore wind.” To date, only one, the Rocky Forge project developed by Apex Clean Energy, has made it through the permitting process in the commonwealth. Utility executives are expecting more to come. In October, Dominion Director of Integrated Resource Planning Glen Kelly told the SCC that the utility is “very open to onshore wind” and that it expects the resource to have a more robust presence in the utility’s future planning.

Dominion, for its part, is confident. Pointing to its successful navigation of the federal permitting process for the CVOW pilot — a process no other company has completed — Dominion executive Bond said the utility has “a set of experiences that others in the United States don’t necessarily have.” With that experience, Dominion is moving swiftly to develop the full CVOW project. After months surveying its lease area and taking core samples to determine how the massive turbines should be engineered, it intends to file its required construction and operations plan with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this December.

The company is also hoping to skirt some of the environmental problems other high-profile projects like Vineyard Wind off Massachusetts have encountered. CVOW’s location 27 miles off the coast “reduces concerns for birds,” said Bond. It limits fisheries impacts as well, although the state’s 19 black sea bass and conch fishermen remain concerned about how closures due to construction and the presence of 188 turbines, three substations and extensive cabling will affect their livelihood.

“The real challenge that we’re running into is there’s not a great roadmap,” said Todd Janeski, a fisheries coordinator with the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program. “Ultimately, how this project does move forward here will inform” other efforts down the road.

Creating an industry from scratch

Ironically, then, with Dominion preparing to file its plans with federal regulators, most of the offshore wind action in Virginia is happening on dry land.

These preparations are all about the economy. Because offshore wind turbines require manufacturing on a monumental scale and the U.S. has no supply chain in place to build them, states from Massachusetts to Virginia are scrambling to position themselves as offshore wind hubs that can not only operate new wind farms but manufacture and maintain the parts that run them.

“We’re trying to create an industry from scratch,” said Doug Smith, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Alliance, an economic development group closely involved in bringing offshore wind to Virginia.

Local and state officials, as well as regional business groups, think Hampton Roads is one of the best candidates for the role. The region possesses a deepwater port that, thanks to the U.S. naval base at Norfolk, isn’t obstructed by bridges that could block vessels ferrying turbine components out to sea. The Navy’s presence has also fostered a robust manufacturing sector that’s oriented toward shipbuilding but could easily expand into offshore wind. And Dominion has plans underway to develop a Hampton Roads-based vessel capable of installing wind turbine components — a major hole in the U.S. portfolio.

“There’s no harbor or port that has the existing infrastructure and workforce that Virginia has,” said Chris Gullickson, director of economic development for the Port of Virginia.

Virginia has already committed significant resources to convincing the fledgling industry that Hampton Roads is the ideal site for a hub, though it has also reached an agreement with North Carolina and Maryland to collaborate in promoting the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic as a regional center for the new energy source. The state’s 2020 budget included $40 million for upgrades at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal, primarily dealing with soil stabilization and reinforcement that will ensure the port can handle parts of turbines that will stand taller than the Washington Monument and have blades longer than seven football fields placed end to end.

“This is the last small piece that we need that will make a huge difference to the industry,” said Jennifer Palestrant, chief deputy of the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy.

Meanwhile, the 2020 General Assembly established a new Division of Offshore Wind within the department that Palestrant said aims to be “the convener for how we develop offshore wind” and allotted $375,000 to stand the new office up. Among the new partners for the division? The Hampton Roads Alliance, which this September was awarded more than half a million dollars in state GO Virginia grant funds to help develop the offshore wind supply chain. The funding followed the group’s establishment this summer of an office in Frankfurt, Germany, that will allow the Alliance to explore partnerships in Europe, where Smith said “the major players of the industry are.” One consultancy, PM&P, has been working with the Alliance to develop a strategic plan for how Hampton Roads can attract offshore wind manufacturers.

Along the East Coast, “there’s going to be a limited number of hubs around the supply chain,” said Smith. “We want to really understand what that looks like.”

A potential boom for workers

One thing is clear: if Hampton Roads becomes one of the East Coast’s top offshore wind hubs, Virginia’s looking at a lot of new jobs. One study by Mangum Economics estimates that for every gigawatt of offshore wind developed, Virginia could see 5,200 new jobs annually.

Most of those are likely to be local to Hampton Roads. The VCEA sets no firm quotas for the hiring of Virginia workers for wind farms, although it does require Dominion to draft a plan for how it will use both local workers and veterans in building out its project — a provision Southeastern Wind Coalition President Katharine Kollins said is “nebulous” but important.

Still, she pointed out, offshore wind energy production is labor intensive. “A solar farm takes care of itself,” she said. “An offshore wind project needs daily operations and maintenance on at least one of the turbines. … You’ve got folks out there every single day who are ensuring these things are running.”

The more manufacturing operations Virginia attracts, the more that workforce is likely to grow as other states build out their projects.

“It’s not just our project. If you look at the queue, the pipeline of projects up and down the East Coast continues to grow,” said Dominion spokesperson Rayhan Daudani. “You develop that workforce not just to construct the 2.6 gigawatts and then have the ongoing (operations and maintenance), but all up and down the East Coast there will be the opportunity to train them here, hire them here.”

One potential game changer would be the development of Dominion’s offshore wind vessel. Currently the only ships capable of installing offshore wind infrastructure are European, but the federal Jones Act bars foreign ships from carrying shipments between U.S. ports. If the utility can get its vessel in operation by 2023 as planned, it would prove a major inducement for manufacturers to locate near its home base of Hampton Roads.

Training, of course, will be necessary. “There’s only a handful of people in Virginia that are qualified to even step foot on a turbine,” said Paul Olsen, executive director of programs and partnerships at Old Dominion University, which has partnered with DMME to help advance offshore wind in the state. “We need to create hundreds of skilled positions.”

Officials are looking to Virginia’s community and technical colleges, as well as manufacturers, to help fill the gap. In October, Gov. Northam announced the creation of a new training alliance to offer certifications for offshore wind work. Partners include Martinsville’s New College Institute, Centura College and Norfolk’s Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy. And officials like Palestrant said they expect skills from Hampton Roads’ existing maritime industry to be easily transferable.

“The technical colleges are already very very interested in providing programs for students to then go straight into these jobs,” said Kollins. “Once we see the development really start to take place … you’re really going to see more and more students entering these courses knowing there’s a job for them at the end of the day.”

(First in a series on Virginia’s transition to a carbon-free electric grid. Tomorrow: What role will utility-scale solar projects play?)

MVP construction has been active recently

From the Press Release of Appalachian Voices, November 9, 2020

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals today sided with conservation groups and issued an immediate stay of Mountain Valley Pipeline’s stream and wetland crossing permits in southern West Virginia and Virginia. The groups, noting the company’s stated rush to resume construction and the serious environmental harms likely to result, had asked the court for the stay while it considered the merits of their challenge of the water-crossing permits issued by the Corps of Engineers.

The eight groups, represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates, filed a challenge of the Corps’ reissuance on September 25 of two “Nationwide Permit 12” approvals that would allow MVP, LLC to trench through some 1,000 streams, rivers, wetlands and other water bodies in the two states. The 4th Circuit had rejected the Corps’ first round of permit approvals in 2018.

As noted in the groups’ filings, Mountain Valley Pipeline’s operator recently told its investors that it intends to blast and trench through “critical” streams “as quickly as possible before anything is challenged.”

The court had issued an emergency stay October 16; today’s stay remains in effect until it rules on the groups’ petition to overturn the Corps’ water permits for the MVP project.

The groups filing the challenge include Appalachian Voices, Center for Biological Diversity, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Sierra Club, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, and Wild Virginia.

>>> Peter Anderson, Virginia Program Manager, Appalachian Voices:
“Communities along the pipeline route have been on edge these past several weeks as the company has moved in heavy equipment and started doing work, so we’re very glad the court pressed pause on this permit while the water-crossing issues are reviewed further.”

>>> David Sligh, Conservation Director, Wild Virginia:
“Once again, the court has shown that it sees the dire threat this dangerous and damaging project poses to our precious waters and vulnerable communities. Convincing a court to stay an agency decision requires plaintiffs to convince the judges that they have a good chance to prove their case after full review. Now, we look forward to doing just that — to show conclusively that the Corps of Engineers abdicated its duty to protect us and our resources.”

>>> Anne Havemann, General Counsel, Chesapeake Climate Action Network:
“The companies behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline have proven countless times that they are unfit to build this pipeline safely, with hundreds of violations and thousands of dollars in fines already. They’ve done nothing to prove that future construction won’t result in the same. We applaud the court for standing on the right side of history and issuing this stay.”

>>> Joan Walker, Senior Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign:
“The MVP has already doubled its timeline and budget, and it’s not even close to being finished. If they were smart, they would quit throwing good money after bad and walk away from this fracked gas disaster like Duke Energy and Dominion Energy did with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.”

>>> Jared Margolis, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity:
“This decision will help ensure the pipeline doesn’t keep posing catastrophic threats to waterways that people and imperiled species depend on to survive. Despite the project’s clear failure to comply with the law, Mountain Valley keeps pushing this climate-killing menace. We’ll continue working to ensure this destructive pipeline doesn’t poison waters and threaten communities along its route.”

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See also: ‘Less-than-ideal bedfellows’: Mountain Valley Pipeline payout to Appalachian Trail Conservancy prompts criticism, Elizabeth McGown, Energy News Network, October 5, 2020

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy expected scrutiny for accepting a $19.5 million gift from the MVP pipeline’s developers but believes time will show it was the right decision.

Norfolk Navy Shipyard considers power options for future

Demand a public hearing for the newest proposed power plant in Virginia: …. Click here to learn how!

Fighting fossil fuel infrastructure in Virginia is like playing a sick game of whack-a-mole. Instead of harmless animatronics, the targets are dangerous projects that pop up across the state bringing carbon emissions and danger to our communities.

But we’re winning: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline was defeated. The Header (Injustice) Project is on hold.

Now, we need your help delaying a new gas-fueled heat & power plant proposed by the Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY).

This project is currently under review by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), but their oversight has been woefully inadequate. Their own documentation shows that community outreach included only five contacts; a token effort for a community that already lies in the shadow of dirty fuel infrastructure and catastrophic sea level rise. The NNSY Plant project must be elevated to the Air Board to allow for additional environmental study, consideration of alternatives, and community outreach.

You can submit a comment to the VA DEQ by October 7 calling for the Air Board to review the NNSY Plant project?

View comment guidelines and talking points here

and email your comment to:

mariama.ouedraogo@deq.virginia.gov

by 11:59 PM on October 7 to ensure your voice is heard. Once scheduled, only commenters that met the October 7 deadline will be able to actively participate in an Air Board hearing.

The VA DEQ needs to hear that Virginians demand proper oversight before yet another piece of dirty infrastructure threatens the path we’re on towards a renewable energy future.

Keep fighting the fight,

Lauren Landis, Hampton Roads Organizer
Chesapeake Climate Action Network

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See also: Rising seas threaten Norfolk Naval Shipyard, raising fears of ‘catastrophic damage’, NBC News, November 18, 2018

Function of NNSY subject to many factors

Stop Mountain Valley Pipeline from polluting Southwest Virginia’s water

Essay by Nan Gray and Freeda Cathcart, Virginia Mercury, July 30, 2020

Muddy water from MVP construction spills into Teels Creek in Franklin County (6/13/18)

Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality is underfunded and unprepared to regulate a massive fracked pipeline through Southwest Virginia. They have not taken the necessary action to prevent MVP from polluting our water.

The VA State Water Control Board issued a water quality certificate for the MVP project in December 2017. Scientists and engineers warned them that it wouldn’t be possible to build a 42-inch pipeline through the mountains without irrevocably harming the water. Before the board issued the permit, they were assured by the Attorney General’s Office that they could revoke the certificate if MVP was unable to protect the water.

Scientists, engineers and lawyers confronted the board in December 2018 with the evidence of the tremendous harm MVP’s project was causing to the water. The board voted to have a hearing to revoke the certificate. Instead of having a hearing, the SWCB met behind closed doors with the an assistant attorney general and then emerged saying they could not revoke the certificate.

In 2018, the VA General Assembly passed a bill giving the “Department” the authority to issue a stop work instruction.

The new statute says: “When the Department determines that there has been a substantial adverse impact to water quality or that an imminent and substantial adverse impact to water quality is likely to occur as a result of such land-disturbing activities, the Department may issue a stop work instruction, without advance notice or hearing, requiring that all or part of such land-disturbing activities on the part of the site that caused the substantial adverse impacts to water quality or are likely to cause imminent and substantial adverse impacts to water quality be stopped until corrective measures specified in the stop work instruction have been completed and approved by the Department.”

At the beginning of the project MVP made a terrible error with its stormwater analysis. The incorrect stormwater runoff rates assumed post-construction soil and groundcover conditions would be the same as pre-construction, forested conditions, even though FERC staff found the project would cause a significant, permanent loss of forest. This explains why MVP continues to pollute waterways with sediment.

The waterways being polluted by the MVP are the habitat for endangered fish. Paul Angermeier, assistant unit leader, U.S. Geological Survey, Virginia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, and a leading expert on the federally-listed endangered Roanoke logperch, warned that sediment-loading to waterways could adversely affect the fish. He also said sediment-loading would occur during project operation and maintenance, not just construction.

July 8, 2020 FERC sent a letter to the US Fish and Wildlife Service specifying five endangered species as “may be adversely affected” by the MVP project, including the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter which the UFWS described as having critical habitat.

Last September, Preserve Craig, a group opposed to the pipeline, along with other organizations, filed a motion with FERC detailing how MVP’s stormwater analysis was incorrect. Citizen monitors presented the information to the State Water Control Board in December 2019 after submitting GPS date and time stamped pictures and videos proving the continuing failure of the erosion and sediment controls. They pleaded with the board and DEQ to issue a stop work instruction to the MVP until the erosion and sediment controls were revised in accordance with a correct stormwater analysis.

In May 2020 DEQ sent the MVP project manager, a DEQ monitor and a civil engineer to meet with us. During the meeting they explained how incidents of MVP polluting the waterway didn’t qualify as violations. If MVP installed and maintained the erosion and sediment controls according to the approved plans then it could not be a project violation. This policy ignores DEQ’s responsibility to protect Virginia’s waterways and endangered species from harm. DEQ must issue a stop work instruction until MVP changes their erosion and sediment control plans to fit the reality of the soils, slope, vegetation, soil chemistry and soil fertility.

The state water board canceled its March meeting due to the pandemic and failed to add MVP to their June agenda, denying the public an opportunity to address the board about MVP continuing to pollute water. This is highly irregular to prevent the public from having any time to make comments to a citizen regulatory board.

During the meeting the DEQ staff reported they had sent a bill for violations to MVP. Now there are reports that MVP is refusing the measly $86,000 fine, and DEQ is entering into negotiations with MVP instead of issuing a stop work instruction until they pay up and until they revise their erosion and sediment controls based on a corrected stormwater analysis.

Attorney General Mark Herring needs to enforce the Consent Decree that requires an independent environmental auditor. MVP hired Tetra Tech to be the environmental auditor with DEQ’s approval. Tetra Tech is the same company responsible for the flawed stormwater analysis. The DEQ should insist on a truly independent environmental auditor who can be trusted to protect our water, endangered fish and ecosystem.

The recent U.S. Supreme Court Maui ruling affirmed the Clean Water Act protects waterways from pollution due to construction projects like MVP. DEQ must issue an immediate stop work instruction until MVP is able to build their project without polluting our waterways and MVP has paid all their fines.

>>> Nan Gray is a licensed professional soil scientist in Virginia and North Carolina and has been in the profession for more than 30 years. She formerly served on the Virginia Board for Professional Soil Scientists and Wetland Professionals. Freeda Cathcart formerly served on the Virginia Board of Pharmacy and the Virginia Midwifery Advisory Board. Both have been volunteer citizen monitors on the Mountain Valley Pipeline project.

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Forest Service, Park Service Move Toward Reissuing New MVP Permits (From ABRA)

The U.S. Forest Service (NFS) published on July 30 a Notice of Intent to prepare a Supplement Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) “to address the Fourth Circuit Court’s ruling, new information, and changed circumstances such as new Federally listed threatened and endangered species and critical habitat designations.” The draft SEIS is expected to be available in September, with the final SEIS completed later in 2020. The NFS announcement follows a July 16 notice by the U.S. Park Service that it will be issuing a new right of way permit for the MVP to cross Park Service land.

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MVP Completion Percentage is Overstated (From ABRA)

The owners of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) have repeatedly proclaimed that over 90% of the project has been completed, no doubt to bolster confidence from their investors and stockholders so that they continue investing. An examination by ABRA of the data reported by MVP to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reveals that project completion claims are overstated. Only 51% of the 300-mile route has pipe in the ground and the ground above it restored. In Virginia, which has one-third of the MVP route, less than 15% of the route has undergone final restoration.

Roanoke River varies with the seasons

From an Article by Jeff Sturgeon, Roanoke Times, June 1, 2020

Builders of the Mountain Valley Pipeline can bore under the Roanoke River to set the pipe at that location instead of an earlier plan to dam the water and dig a trench, energy regulators say.

Mountain Valley cannot currently undertake the river crossing in eastern Montgomery County, however, because of a lack of federal authorizations. Construction began in 2018 but has been on hold since fall.

On May 20, Mountain Valley asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval to change methods for its planned crossing of one of the region’s major rivers. Its application described the creation of pits on opposite sides of the river where the pipeline route and river intersect in Lafayette. One pit would be nearly 31 feet deep, the other nearly 22 feet. A crew would bore horizontally 316 feet and install the 42-inch pipe directly behind the boring machine, passing at least 6 feet beneath the river bottom, the application said.

The project could be completed in 90 days, the filing said.

Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox, asked for the company’s reason for the change, said variances to use boring “for specific crossings” would allow Mountain Valley to “complete final restoration work for larger sections” of the pipeline’s right of way.

In giving its consent May 27, FERC said the decision to bore rather than block the river and lay pipe in a trench “will result in a reduction in impacts on aquatic resources by avoiding impacts to the stream bank and channel.”

The earth in that location is dominated by shale and limestone with a high percentage of gravel and cobbles, conditions that will require the application of clay solution to lubricate the cutting process, the application said. MVP plans to obtain 500,000 gallons of water from a municipal source and not use river water. MVP said it “does not anticipate conditions” that would cause drilling fluids to be released into the environment.

The drilling fluid was described in the application as non-petroleum based, non-hazardous and “non-toxic to fish” at the low concentrations contemplated by MVP’s plan, the application said.

Roanoke area citizens realize MVP is an insult to the environment

The obstacles blocking progress by MVP include a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to revisit an earlier ruling that found that the project would not harm endangered species. Permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cross streams and wetlands is also outstanding, though Sligh said a decision to bore would make having that permission unnecessary for the Roanoke River crossing. Finally, a permit needed to cross the Jefferson National Forest is under review by the U.S. Forest Service.