Popular Resistance is a founding member of We Are Cove Point – the campaign to stop Dominion from completing construction of the first fracked gas refinery and export terminal in the East Coast and the first one to be built in a densely-populated neighborhood.
This is a critical fight to stop fracking of the Utica and Marcellus Shales and the associated pipelines and compressor stations. Without the ability to export, fracking will be less economically viable.
Please support the campaign to stop Dominion’s dangerous terminal by making a donation, spreading the word and volunteering if you are able. Click here to donate.
Thank you!
Help us shut down this terminal to protect our community and fight fracking around the eastern US.
We Are Cove Point formed in December 2014 when a group of impacted local residents teamed up with activists from around the mid-Atlantic, determined to do everything we can to stop the construction of the massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal Dominion is building in the Cove Point neighborhood of Lusby, Maryland.
The domestic fracking industry has seen better days and is counting on exports to be its golden solution that increases the value of fracked gas and funds a massive build-out of infrastructure and new fracking wells. In the eastern US, the success of this export terminal at Cove Point is the pivot point that will either lead to a vast expanse of wells, pipelines, compressor stations and gas-fired power plants (and all of the pollution, risks and health impacts that come with these things), or an industry with an uncertain future that’s struggling to stay afloat.
Locally, residents are suffering under construction that’s seen this rural community on the Chesapeake Bay taken over by massive industrialization. Roads are often blocked by giant construction vehicles, there have been accidents (at the job site and on neighborhood streets), emissions of hazardous toxins have exceeded legal levels, and people are forced to deal with grimy roads, loud noise, heavy truck traffic, and a complicit and over-bearing police force while the construction continues around the clock. If this project is completed, 21.5 tons of pollutants would be pumped each year into the air of Lusby, Calvert County’s biggest town. Nowhere else in the world does an LNG export terminal exist in as densely populated an area as this. More than 8,000 people live within the 2.2 mile emergency evacuation zone, a distance recommended by the Department of Energy in the case of an explosion. There are around 300 houses further down Cove Point Road, where their only connection to the rest of the world is the road that passes the terminal; for them, there is no evacuation.
Since the creation of We Are Cove Point, we launched a very successful Indiegogo campaign (raising nearly $22,000!) and hired an organizer with the money. We’ve done a series of direct actions, a ton of media work, and a whole lot of community organizing — culminating most recently in the largest march Southern Maryland has ever experienced for anything in its history.
In June, two prominent industry insiders spoke directly about the impact We Are Cove Point and allied groups have been having on Dominion’s building of this export terminal. Dr. Bernard Weinstein, Associate Director of the Maguire Energy Institute, told a gas industry forum that he was “real skeptical” that the Cove Point terminal would get finished and that “the political and environmental push back is going to be tremendous,” citing specifically the work that “protesters” were doing around Cove Point. Additionally, Dominion CEO Tom Farrell, speaking at a utilities conference, worried that “In the hands of those who oppose the energy infrastructure, social media gone viral can erode industry credibility and make our job to communicate the facts much harder.”
We have an increasing amount of momentum on our side, but we’re running out of money. That’s why it’s so important we meet our goal with this Indiegogo campaign to keep our work afloat.
This Cove Point LNG export terminal must be stopped — and we need your help to do it.
