Above Photo: STEPHANIE KLEIN-Davis | The Roanoke Times. Jane Kleeb, 43, of Nebraska, known as the “Keystone Killer,” for her in strength organizating communities to oppose the Keystone pipeline in her state, visited Boones Mill, Roanoke and Blacksburg on Friday. She stands for a photo at the Heatherwood Apartments Community Room in Boones Mill with a group of community members she addressed early Friday morning.
BOONES MILL — Nebraskan Jane Kleeb, dubbed the “Keystone killer” by Rolling Stone magazine and described elsewhere as a pipeline road warrior, met Friday morning in Boones Mill with foes of the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline to share her take on grassroots activism.
She told a crowd of about 40 people, gathered in an apartment complex’s community hall, that to beat the Mountain Valley Pipeline they must remain united and believe they can win.
“The only thing that will stop these pipelines will be you sticking together,” Kleeb said.
Mountain Valley wants to build and bury a 42-inch diameter steel pipeline that would transport natural gas at high pressure from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to the Transco pipeline in Pittsylvania County. In Virginia, the pipeline would travel through Giles, Montgomery, Craig, Roanoke and Franklin counties.
Most of the people who turned out Friday morning for Kleeb’s presentation were residents of Franklin County, but property owners in Roanoke County also attended.
Pete Markham, a resident of Bent Mountain whose property is on a pipeline route, asked Kleeb how to gain support from landowners and others not directly affected.
“Most of us here have got some skin in the game,” he said, gesturing to the crowd.
Beginning nearly six years ago, Kleeb, 43, the founder of Bold Nebraska, helped organize what she described as “an unlikely alliance” in the Cornhusker state of traditionally conservative farmers and ranchers, Native Americans, Libertarians opposed to eminent domain’s use by private corporations, faith leaders and environmentalists to fight TransCanada’s Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.
She said the alliance emphasized property rights; the potential impact of pipeline spills on Nebraska’s agriculture and its water, including the Ogallala Aquifer; and, ultimately, climate change linked by many scientists to continued reliance on fossil fuels.
The aquifer, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture, “provides water to nearly one-fifth of the wheat, corn, cotton and cattle produced in the United States, and is the main water supply for people throughout the High Plains.”
The emphasis by Keystone opponents on climate change, as well as their efforts to raise awareness about the environmental damage caused by crude oil extraction from tar sands, helped gain the attention and participation of national environmental groups, Kleeb said.
She said opponents focused also on President Obama, who was trying to demonstrate that the U.S. was committed to fighting climate change.
As envisioned, the Keystone XL would have been a 1,179-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline capable of transporting about 830,000 barrels a day of Canadian tar sands crude oil from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska. From there, existing pipelines would have moved the oil to Gulf Coast refineries, TransCanada said.
In November, Obama denied the permit TransCanada needed for its pipeline to cross the border. In January, TransCanada announced it was taking legal action to challenge that decision.
Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and CEO, released a statement that said Obama’s decision “deals a damaging blow to jobs, the economy and the environment on both sides of the border.”
Keystone opponents celebrated Obama’s decision as a major win for grassroots activists and environmentalists.
Because the Mountain Valley Pipeline would be an interstate natural gas pipeline, the $3.5 billion, 301-mile project needs approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is working to prepare a draft environmental impact statement for the pipeline, before construction can begin.
Kleeb said pipeline foes could point to the environmental damage attributed to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, an extraction method used to gain access to natural gas in shale formations.
Public opposition to the Mountain Valley project first emerged in Floyd County during the summer of 2014. The pipeline company later changed the project’s path and Floyd County fell off the route.
Many in the region who have been active opponents to the project since 2014 have devoted many hours to that work.
“Their whole strategy is to wear us down,” Markham told Kleeb.
She said opponents can adopt a similar strategy and do whatever they can to delay the pipeline project. Keystone opponents seized on that pipeline’s potential impact on endangered burying beetles to slow the review process, she said.
If FERC greenlights the Mountain Valley project, the joint venture will have access to eminent domain to acquire easements across private property if negotiations fail to yield an acceptable price.
The threat to property rights helped rally opposition in Nebraska, Kleeb said.
She founded Bold Nebraska in March 2010. Philanthropist Dick Holland, a Nebraskan described by Omaha Magazine as a “powerful contributor to progressive Democratic causes and candidates,” helped fund the organization.
At the time, Kleeb’s goals for Bold Nebraska focused on establishing an alternative in Nebraska to what the organization described as “far-right ideas and policies that are more about protecting big business, not fighting for our families.”
Kleeb and Bold Nebraska’s opposition to the Keystone project became a central issue a few months later after she attended a state department hearing in May 2010 where she heard farmers expressing fears about how a pipeline spill could destroy their livelihood.
Kleeb said Bold Nebraska covers her travel expenses when she visits landowners for training and offers related presentations. She said the organization is funded by donors large and small, including about 10,000 small donors.
Her trip to Virginia included stops Friday in Roanoke and Blacksburg. She plans to meet today in Weyers Cave with opponents of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a separate natural gas transmission project.
After the Boones Mill meeting, Steve Bernard, a Franklin County resident whose property would be affected by the Mountain Valley project, said he felt buoyed by Kleeb’s presentation.