Above Photo: By Bob Stuart
More:
- Facebook short video to share (local activist Nancy Sorrells of the Augusta County Alliance)
– Facebook Live video to share (harvest celebration in Afton, VA)
STUARTS DRAFT — Corn planted on Stuarts Draft land in June to show opposition to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was harvested Friday.
The sacred corn — called “seeds of resistance” — rests on land that is part of the proposed path of the 600-mile natural gas pipeline. The pipeline path includes about 55 miles of Augusta County.
Joining area groups opposed to the pipeline were Jane Kleeb, president of Bold Alliance, and Wes Mekasi Horinek of Bold Alliance. Horinek, a Ponca National member, has protested the Dakota Access Pipeline. That pipeline would transport light sweet crude oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa into Illionois.
Horinek told a crowd of about 50 in Stuarts Draft that “global awareness is needed to protect the land.” He said the resistance symbolized by the corn is part of the resistance all participating in Friday’s activity felt.
“There is resistance growing in each of us,” Horinek said. He said the resistance is to big oil, corporate greed, and shows support for the rights of nature.
Other seeds of resistance harvests are scheduled over the weekend in Monroe County, W.Va. and Bent Mountain, Va.
The application for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is now before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A draft environmental impact statement from FERC on the project could be complete before the end of 2017.
Nancy Sorrells, co-chair of the Augusta County Alliance, said a portion of Friday’s sacred corn participants came from other counties along the pipeline route such as Nelson and Bath counties.
Sorrells said a study released last month showed that there is sufficient infrastructure in Virginia and the Carolinas to handle energy needs without building the ACP.
The study performed by Synapse Energy Economics concluded that the ACP and Mountain Valley Pipeline are not needed. The conclusion is based on existing pipeline capacity, existing natural gas storage, an expected reversal in the direction of flow of the Transco pipeline and an anticipated upgrade of a Columbia Gas pipeline.
“This is an unnecessary pipeline for corporate profit,” Sorrells said of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
Dominion Resources, the lead utility in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, disputes the study findings, saying the report was flawed. Among the flaws is any reliance on stored natural gas, which Dominion says is nowhere near enough to meet demands in the coming years.