Above: A contracted employee with a two-man Dominion route survey team checks his phone as he walks with a sub-centimeter GPS unit across the field his team just surveyed near Guthrie Road on Friday, Sept. 12, 2014. They help survey the route for the Dominion’s proposed methane gas pipeline.
Dominion changed the venue for its information meeting on its natural [sic methane] gas pipeline next week after protest plans were announced at its previously arranged location.
The event will be held at Augusta Expo in Fishersville beginning at 5 p.m. rather than the Government Center in Verona. The county government made the decision Friday not to host the meeting.
Company representatives scheduled it as the first of many open houses to answer questions from landowners and the public on an informal, one-on-one basis. They will have more details about information and maps for the proposed 550-mile utility line Dominion wants to build from West Virginia to North Carolina.
About 43 miles of the pipeline corridor would run through Augusta County.
The Augusta County Alliance, which formed in opposition to the energy company’s proposal, alerted supporters Thursday about protests being organized in Verona.
On Friday, County Administrator Pat Coffield notified Dominion that the wording of the alert from the Alliance raised safety concerns about government employees and open house visitors.
The open house would have overlapped with Government Center hours. Because of that and the safety concerns, “I do not feel that the Government Center is the appropriate location for the Open House along with the planned activities of the Augusta County Alliance,” Coffield wrote in a letter to Dominion.
In an interview, Coffield noted phrases in the Alliance email newsletter about not letting, “the landowners go in there alone.” “Let’s pack the parking lot and pack the room,” the notice said.
The organization’s presence at previous pipeline-related events have been peaceable – with members staffing a stand and offering visitors stickers and literature.
Coffield told Alliance co-chair Nancy Sorrells about concerns over the group’s presence at the Government Center. Sorrells offered to move its protest location away from the center’s main entrance to avoid disturbing or intimidating county employees or open house visitors.
“The first reply was that the meeting had been canceled,” Sorrells said Friday. She said in a release from the Alliance that the group was saddened by the decision to move the event from a public to private venue.
Dominion’s information session will begin at 5 p.m. for landowners and run from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. for landowners and the public. Alliance members can still attend the public part of the open house with their opposition T-shirts and ask questions, Sorrells said.