Vietnam veteran Fred Vest told the crowd that he returned from the war yearning for sanctuary and peace of mind and believed he had secured both on rural Bent Mountain.
Years later, in December 2014, Vest learned that the route of the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline appeared destined to cross his property, a reality he said threatens the solace he’s found and the clear running springs that he said abound on his land.
Vest was one of about 50 people who gathered at noon Wednesday along Peters Creek Road near the regional office of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The group came together in an effort to communicate to the department and to Gov. Terry McAuliffe their conviction that the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the separate Atlantic Coast Pipeline are projects whose risks outweigh their benefits.
Speakers included two pastors from Franklin County who described the Mountain Valley Pipeline as a threat both to God’s creation and to parishioners with properties on the proposed route.
Ricky Smithers, pastor of Crossroads Community Church on Bonbrook Mill Road, said his attempts to talk to some parishioners about their spiritual lives have been pre-empted by their need to discuss fears about the pipeline. He decried the potential for a private company to wield the power of eminent domain to acquire easements across private properties.
Pipeline opponents held rallies Wednesday at six other DEQ offices and expect to hold similar events at noon Thursday.
The gatherings are happening as the department weighs what its recommendations will be to the State Water Control Board regarding the award of water quality certification to the projects. Each would bury a 42-inch diameter pipeline to transport natural gas at high pressure.
Organizers announced the protests just before Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas and Hurricane Irma began forming near the Cape Verde Islands. During the Roanoke protest, participants linked the powerful storms to climate change and observed a moment of silence for those who’d lost homes and loved ones.
McAuliffe has voiced consistent support for the two pipeline projects. He and other supporters have said the natural gas transported by the interstate pipelines will stimulate economic development, provide a cleaner fuel than coal for power generation, lure new manufacturers, augment the nation’s quest for energy independence and offer other benefits.
Mike Tidwell is director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, which helped organized the DEQ protests. Tidwell, who participated in Wednesday’s rally in Roanoke, has asserted that the two natural gas transmission pipelines would intensify fracking and related pollution in the Appalachian Basin; increase emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas; threaten water quality and cause profound environmental damage along their routes while enabling continued reliance on fossil fuels at the expense of investment in renewable energy.
Tidwell has said that if the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast projects move forward, McAuliffe will be remembered as a governor whose embrace of the pipelines helped worsen climate change, boosting the prospect of increased coastal flooding from sea level rise and the potential of catastrophic storms.
McAuliffe also has repeatedly said that the fate of the interstate pipelines rests with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and that he lacks authority to halt the projects — a contention long rebutted by pipeline foes.
Opponents have noted that New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation has denied water quality certification permits for two major natural gas pipeline projects, alleging their construction would violate state water quality standards. In August, a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld New York’s denial of water quality certification sought by the Constitution Pipeline.
David Sligh, conservation director of Wild Virginia and an investigator for the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition, has said the court’s decision contradicted McAuliffe’s frequent declarations of powerlessness.
“We have known and argued to Virginia officials for over two years that they had all the authority they needed to demand necessary information and deny certification unless compliance with water quality standards is assured,” Sligh said in August.
On Wednesday, Angela Navarro, Virginia’s deputy secretary of natural resources, noted that McAuliffe’s support for the pipelines has been accompanied by his desire that state agencies vetting the projects perform robust reviews. She noted that DEQ is an independent agency whose recommendations to the State Water Control Board will reflect the department’s unprecedented analysis of potential impacts to water quality.
On Sept. 7, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection reported it had withdrawn the water quality certification issued in March for the Mountain Valley project.
Appalachian Mountain Advocates, an environmental law firm, had appealed the certification to the Fourth Circuit in June on behalf of five clients, all environmental watchdog groups, arguing that the department’s analysis was inadequate.
Department spokesman Jacob Glance said Friday that the department had “determined that the information used to issue that certification needs to be further evaluated and possibly enhanced.”
Sligh said Virginia’s DEQ should take note.
“It will be much better for DEQ and the board to do the job right the first time than to waste taxpayer funds trying to defend inadequate decisions,” he said.
Vest noted that the outcome in West Virginia could hold profound significance for landowners in Virginia on the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
“If they can’t come through West Virginia, they can’t get here,” he said.
