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Pipeline Opponents Meet Following Trump Election

Editor’s Note: When it comes to natural gas drilling, the one thing our local area lacks is infrastructure — namely, pipelines. With the recent developments in North Dakota with protests to the Dakota Access pipeline, and the ongoing struggle in parts of West Virginia and Virginia to halt the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines, the Roanoke, Va. Times provides this story from a gathering Saturday to discuss strategies to stop pipelines with a new, pro-energy president elected.

NATURAL BRIDGE, Va. — The consensus that emerged during Saturday’s “pipeline summit” emphasized that Donald Trump’s election will make it tougher to fight fossil fuel pipelines but that this new reality is no cause for abandoning the fight.

“Our job just got much harder,” said Joe Lovett, executive director of Appalachian Mountain Advocates.

Later, a tribal leader from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, where opposition to the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline has attracted international attention, told the crowd of people opposed to natural gas pipelines in the region that the struggles ahead will require resolve, unity and a recognition that people have more power than corporations.

“Stay strong,” said Chase Iron Eyes. “That’s the only chance we have.”

Iron Eyes’ brief speech elicited a standing ovation. The crowd he addressed at the Natural Bridge Hotel totaled about 180 people and included residents of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina who came together Saturday to discuss and update strategies that might stop two separate interstate natural gas transmission pipeline projects.

The community of Natural Bridge is roughly equidistant from the spot where the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would cross Interstate 81 near Staunton, Va. and the site where the Mountain Valley Pipeline would cross I-81 south of Roanoke, Va.

Both the 600-mile, $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the 303-mile, $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline would be 42-inch diameter, buried pipelines transporting natural gas at high pressure. Each would begin in West Virginia and travel into Virginia. As interstate pipelines, the projects require approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission before construction can begin.

Speakers Saturday included Nebraskan Jane Kleeb, dubbed the “Keystone Killer” by Rolling Stone magazine for her work organizing opposition to the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. Kleeb founded Bold Nebraska and is president of Bold Alliance, described as a network of small groups fighting fossil fuel projects and “eminent domain abuse.”

Kleeb’s visit to the region was her fourth since April. Her visits have focused on sharing experiences with grass-roots campaigns.

She said Saturday that pipeline companies fear the prospect of losing access to eminent domain to acquire easements across private properties.

“The one thing we have that these pipeline companies want is the land,” Kleeb said, noting that the fight for property rights can unite people who might not ordinarily stand together.

That happened in Nebraska, she said, when ranchers, environmentalists and Native Americans stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the Keystone pipeline.

People can agree also, she said, on the necessity to protect clean water.

On Wednesday, after Trump’s election, the Keystone pipeline’s fate was back in the news. TransCanada spokesman Mark Cooper said the company remains committed to building the pipeline and is “evaluating ways to engage the new administration” to describe the project’s benefits.

Kleeb reacted, saying, “Nebraska stopped Keystone XL once before, and we will do it again” if TransCanada proceeds with a project she described as risky and unnecessary.

Relative necessity was an issue Saturday too. Opponents to the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley projects contend there is sufficient existing pipeline capacity to get natural gas from the shale formations in the Appalachian Basin to market.

Yet many people in West Virginia believe both that new pipeline infrastructure is needed and that natural gas will help the state’s economy cope with the decline of coal, said Angie Rosser, executive director of West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

Meanwhile, she said, “the burden of fracking will fall on West Virginians’ shoulders.”

Two coalitions — the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance and POWHR (Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights) — sponsored Saturday’s pipeline summit.

Several speakers described the draft environmental impact statement released by FERC in September for the Mountain Valley project as insufficient.

Lovett said the draft statement’s inadequacies could actually enhance efforts to halt the project through litigation.

Greg Buppert, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, noted that efforts to fight the pipelines have caused the companies involved to adjust project schedules. Mountain Valley, for example, had hoped to start construction in December and is now eyeing a construction start in mid-2017.

Partners in the Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC include EQT Corp., NextEra Energy, Con Edison Gas Midstream, WGL Midstream and RGC Midstream. Partners in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC joint venture include Dominion, Duke Energy/Piedmont Natural Gas and Southern Company Gas.

On Saturday, Rick Webb, coordinator of the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition, said both pipeline projects would climb and descend steep slopes. That terrain will defy efforts, he said, to control erosion and the migration of sediment into high-quality streams and underground aquifers that are part of complex karst landscapes characterized by sinkholes and caves.

Webb expressed support for the U.S Forest Service’s request for specifics from the pipeline companies about how they will address erosion, sediment, landslides and other geo-hazards.

Political consultant Mike Dunn said defeating the pipelines in the wake of Trump’s election will require true grass-roots efforts.

“You’re going to have to make this happen at the state and local level, ladies and gentlemen,” Dunn said.

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