The Time Bomb is Detonated
Today, June 12, 2024, frontline communities along the Mountain Valley Pipeline route are grappling with their imminent demise. As of today, highly pressurized methane gas is free to flow through the pipeline.
Waves of shock and anger washed over communities yesterday when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted the MVP permission to go in service one day after it claimed to be ‘mechanically complete.’ This, despite 10 years of warnings and evidence that this pipeline was being planned for the wrong era and in wrong terrain.
The pipeline is far from complete. Just 3 days ago, exposed pipe and active construction was observed on the sheer slope of Poor Mountain in Montgomery County VA, one of the most, if not the most difficult slope of the many steep slopes on the route. MVP assurances of rigorous testing and public safety were suspicious if not outright false even before construction began. One must wonder if MVP’s brazen demand for rushed approval from FERC had everything to do with the company’s own shaky confidence in the pipeline’s integrity.
None of the required restoration work has taken place here, 2 days after the final pipe was put in place, nor at many places on the route. In a report issued last Friday, as of May 31, final restoration project-wide was just 69.4%. Without restorative vegetation, there’s nothing to keep the erodable soils in place on these slopes. But truly, planting grass on 125’ swaths on steep slopes runs counter to nature’s ideal plan for trees with extensive root systems to hold soil and mountains in place. This area is rife with landslides and sink holes. Restoration work is not proceeding quickly, but is essential to hold the soil, and thus the pipeline, in place.
The public has no reason to believe any scenario short of disaster. Possibly hundreds of ‘anomalies’ in the pipe exist. Miles of corroded and degraded pipe is buried. Corrosion-protection cathodic beds aren’t in service. MVP added no odorant to the gas mix, so leaks can’t be detected by smell. And there is much the public doesn’t know: testing and test results aren’t made public, including metallurgical lab results on the pipe that ruptured during hydrostatic testing on May 1. But so it’s been since 2014: the project’s route was planned on a desktop in Pennsylvania, and advised against by numbers of experts. Construction permits were lost because of negligence, incompetence or over-zealousness, and blamed on the weather, and an erratic work force. Workers were hurt, working long shifts and on difficult terrain. Leapfrogged over legislative, judicial and environmental norms so that backroom deals could make the debt ceiling bill fly, the project was enabled by state environmental quality agencies, FERC, the Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration, and others. Cheating was the only way this pipeline could be built. The company was fined millions of dollars in water quality violations (until the VA DEQ hired an ex-MVP consultant as director and violations and fines lessened dramatically) and never could get stream crossings right. Timelines were continually pushed back and sediment pollution events became the norm.
Communities have been disregarded, disrespected and endangered. Information isn’t forthcoming from the MVP, so communities are left to protect themselves by monitoring construction and stream health. Doing industry’s and regulatory agencies’ jobs by reporting issues hasn’t brought thanks. Sediment pollution events have lasted weeks, while the VA DEQ ignored and/or discounted citizen reports of water violations.
Appalachian Trail hikers traversing Peters Mountain will be in the incineration zone. A popular entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Franklin County is just yards from the pipeline. Our national forests have been sold to industry.
Ancient lands have been violated. Pristine streams have been destroyed. Endangered species have been harmed. People’s only water sources have been permanently polluted. Livelihoods impacted. Families and friendships have suffered. Trauma and grief and ever-present. Residents live with the very real danger of death and destruction. Selling or moving away aren’t options for these places that have been family homes and ancestral lands for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Who would buy a time bomb?
Without legal options, people chose to bodily get in the way of this horrifically wrong project, and did so in droves. Some walked onto constructions sites and stalled work. Others put themselves in bolder positions, shutting down work for days, weeks or months and longer, as in the case of the Yellow Finch tree sits, for 932 days.
Late last year, the MVP began suing approx. 50 protestors with Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suits, claiming $4.3 million in damages. SLAPPs are meant to intimidate people with time, fear and finances. For local communities, there’s nothing more to lose. Their homes, resources and livelihoods have been lost and their very lives are at risk. For wider communities, building methane pipelines leaking across their length amidst our climate chaos is an atrocity too far.
An unfathomable number of wrongs have been committed in each phase of the sordid saga of the MVP. Every community lies in the cross-hairs of a future fossil fuel project. A short-cut to cheat the former normal channels has been found and will be used again. If this ill-advised pipeline route was allowed, others will be. We are all collateral damage in the eyes of emboldened corporations and their henchmen at every level of government who hold nothing sacred besides profit.
Bright possibilities are found locally, however. At this newly formed community garden in Montgomery County, there’s mutual support and health, along with hope.
Please donate to the legal defense fund for pipeline fighters: bit.ly/AppLegalDefense. Protectors face ever-increasing and expensive intimidation tactics and legal charges, but remain undaunted.
These worthy on-the-ground groups fight the MVP disaster:
https://www.aapsolidarity.org/
https://powhr.org/
https://7directionsofservice.com/
I still can’t believe this is actually happening 😡😓