Pipelines

North Carolina Nixes Part Of The Atlantic Coast Pipeline Proposal

October 10, 2017 Lisa Sorg, www.pulse.ncpolicywatch.org Resist! Environment, North Carolina, Pipelines

By Lisa Sorg for The Progressive Pulse - The NC Department of Environmental Quality has rejected the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s erosion and sediment control plan, dealing yet another setback to the $5.5 billion project. In a letter dated Sept. 26, the Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources told the ACP owners it had disapproved the plan, primarily because there was so much missing information. The ACP is co-owned by Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Southeast Energy Company and Piedmont Natural Gas. The utilities have until Oct. 11 to submit a revised plan for consideration. If they want to contest DEQ’s disapproval, they must request an administrative hearing by Nov. 25. ACP’s plan, according to the letter, failed to provide detailed construction sequence and erosion control methods, plus measures required to protect all public and private property from construction damage. DEQ lists the shortcomings of the plan in 17 separate points over three pages. A specific concern for DEQ is the potential damage pipeline construction would have on the Neuse River. The plan, which originally called for open trenching, has been changed to a method known as a cofferdam. A cofferdam is an enclosure placed in a river, for example, that allows the water to be pumped out. However, the Neuse River is a habitat for many threatened or at-risk species, including the Neuse River waterdog, and draining the water could kill them. The utilities have claimed that they would try to collect any key species and relocate them — where, though, they didn’t say.

TransCanada Terminates Energy East Pipeline Project

October 6, 2017 Mike De Souza, www.nationalobserver.com Resist! Class Struggle, Environment, Pipelines

By Mike De Souza for National Observer - TransCanada Corp. has terminated its Energy East pipeline, triggering a $1 billion loss and bringing an end to an epic battle between politicians, big oil, Indigenous leaders and environmental groups. In a statement released on Thursday morning, the Calgary-based company's president and chief executive officer, Russ Girling, said it was notifying the federal regulator, the National Energy Board, and Quebec's Environment Department of its decision, after reviewing "changed circumstances." Girling said the decision would cost his company $1 billion due to the investments it has already made in the project. The company said it wasn't expecting to recover any of its losses from any third parties since it failed to get a regulatory decision on the project. "We appreciate and are thankful for the support of labour, business and manufacturing organizations, industry, our customers, Irving Oil, various governments, and the approximately 200 municipalities who passed resolutions in favour of the projects," Girling said in the statement. "Most of all, we thank Canadians across the country who contributed towards the development of these initiatives."

Minnesotans Rally To ‘Hold The Line’ Against Enbridge Pipeline Project

October 4, 2017 Brandon Jordan, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Minnesota, Pipelines, Protests

By Brandon Jordan for Waging Nonviolence - Hundreds of residents gathered in front of the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul on Thursday for a rally to “Hold the Line” against a pipeline project called Line 3. Backed by the Canadian pipeline company Enbridge Energy, the inter-state project was the subject of the city’s only public meeting held later that day, and residents were firmly determined to make their voices heard. With an hour to go until the public hearing, they marched over a mile to the InterContinental Saint Paul Riverfront hotel. Once inside, they argued against the project’s approval to the judge who will decide Line 3’s fate next year. “It’s just nice to be in a sea of people who feel the same way that you do,” said Mysti Babineau of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe in northwestern Minnesota. “It gives me hope because a lot of these people I’m seeing nowadays are so young.” Enbridge is proposing a replacement of its old Line 3, which was installed in the 1960s and is now considered to be inefficient and too costly to remove. Once decommissioned, the old Line 3 would be cleaned and left in the ground and a new $7.5 billion pipeline would be constructed. While taking a slightly different path through northern Minnesota, it would end at the same oil facility in Superior, Wisconsin. Enbridge claims the project is the “best [way] to maintain system integrity while minimizing disruption to landowners and communities.”

Residents Claim Energy Transfer Partners Violated Constitutional Rights

October 3, 2017 Sue Sturgis, www.facingsouth.org Resist! Lawsuit, Pennsylvania, Pipelines

By Sue Sturgis for Facing South - Four Pennsylvania residents filed a federal lawsuit this week against Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), claiming the Fortune 500 company and its subsidiaries violated their constitutional rights by engaging in illegal surveillance and harassment against landowners and pipeline protesters and caused emotional distress and other harm. The suit, which seeks compensatory damages, also names ETP's private security provider, North Carolina-based TigerSwan, as well as local law enforcement officers who arrested pipeline opponents on charges that ultimately were not prosecuted. It claims that energy companies like ETP are increasingly relying on de facto public-private partnerships with government to "strong-arm" opponents into silence with false arrests and malicious prosecution. "Since May of 2015, every day of my life has been affected by the plans to build this pipeline, and the lengths that Energy Transfer Partners will go to in the pursuit of profit," said plaintiff Elise Gerhart, who lives on property that will be crossed by the pipeline. "We've been needlessly harassed by agencies and violently threatened by individuals who've been intentionally incited and mobilized." The lawsuit claims that energy companies like ETP are increasingly relying on de facto public-private partnerships to "strong-arm" opponents into silence.

Historic Union Hill Community Threatened By Atlantic Coast Pipeline

September 30, 2017 Sammy DiDonato, www.unicornriot.ninja Resist! FERC, Pipelines, Protests, Virginia

By Sammy DiDonato for Unicorn Riot - Dominion plans to build a large compressor station for the pipeline in Union Hill, a historic Black community founded by descendants of freed slaves in unincorporated Buckingham County near the Cumberland State Forest, west of Richmond. Local residents see the pipeline company’s disregard for their community as part of an established history of environmental racism in Virginia. “As African-Americans living in a county where racial inequality and retaliation have been facts of life for over 300 years, where many of their ancestors were enslaved, the community of Union Hill’s lack of access to political decision-making makes them vulnerable to Dominion Power’s corporate profit-making plans.” – Lakshmi Fjord, anthropologist and activist with Friends of Buckingham County. The kayak actions were carried out to call on the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to not defer to the Army Corps of Engineers decision when issuing permits to projects that threaten water quality. Organizing groups included Friends of Buckingham County, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, Friends of Nelson County, and Yogaville Environmental Solutions. Friends of Buckingham County has been organizing around the Atlantic Coast Pipeline for three years.

Disputed East Coast Pipeline Likely To Expand

September 30, 2017 Sarah Rankin, www.usnews.com Educate! Pipelines, South Carolina

By Sarah Rankin for Associated Press - RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The developers of a disputed natural gas pipeline on the U.S. East Coast are considering a major expansion of the project into South Carolina, according to remarks made by an energy company executive and interviews with others in the industry. Opponents of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline said that raises questions about whether Dominion Energy, the project's lead developer, has withheld important information from the public and whether the pipeline is even needed as initially proposed. But business leaders say the pipeline would help lower energy costs and boost economic development in South Carolina. Dan Weekley, Dominion Energy's vice president and general manager of Southern pipeline operations, told attendees at a recent energy conference "everybody knows" the Atlantic Coast Pipeline — currently slated to pass through Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina — is not going to stop there, despite what the current plans say. "We could bring in almost a billion cubic feet (28 million cubic meters) a day into South Carolina," Weekley said, according to an audio recording The Associated Press obtained from a conference attendee. The attendee requested anonymity out of concern for not wanting to harm business or personal relationships. The remarks appear to be the Richmond, Virginia-based company's most direct public signal to date that it intends to expand the pipeline, though industry analysts said the potential has been discussed for years.

Virginians Press Gubernatorial Candidate To Oppose Pipelines

September 25, 2017 Staff, www.beyondextremeenergy.org Resist! Pipelines, Virginia

By Staff of Beyond Extreme Energy - LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA–Virginia citizens against fracked gas pipelines send Gubernatorial Candidate Ralph Northam nearly 300 “Hear Our Voice” postcards from Loudoun County. Kamie Bledsoe, environmental activist member of 350 Loudoun, started the post card campaign shortly after Tom Perriello lost the Democratic Primary. Tom Perriello came out against the new proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline. But, Ralph Northam, despite taking the Hippocratic Oath in his training as a medical doctor, failed to oppose the pipelines and in an interview on a conservative radio station stated that governors cannot take a position against pipelines. Regrettably, Dr. Northam is mistaken. The governors of New York and Maryland have come out against fracked gas pipelines. In fact, Lieutenant Governor candidate Justin Fairfax and at least ¾ of candidates running for the VA House of Delegates have also come out against the pipelines. Dr. Northam’s position on pipelines is contrary to the National Democratic platform to promote renewable sources of energy.

Santa Barbara Votes To Divest From Banks Funding Dakota Access Pipeline

September 25, 2017 Grace Feldmann and Emiliano Campobello, www.lastrealindians.com Resist! Banks, Dakota Access Pipeline, Divestment, Pipelines

By Grace Feldmann and Emiliano Campobello for Last Real Indians - SANTA BARBARA, California / village of Syuxtun—9/19/17, Santa Barbara City Council voted to proceed toward divesting over $40 million from banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) starting with divestment of $6.25 million. This includes the early sale of $2.25 million in investments with Wells Fargo & Goldman Sachs. Also, a $4 million note with Union Bank is maturing and will be reinvested according to ethical investment goals, to the extent that such investments achieve “substantially equivalent safety, liquidity and yield” compared to traditional investments. These decisions come after a year of public pressure by the Santa Barbara Standing Rock Coalition (SBSRC), Chumash tribes, and allied groups. The City Council decided it is in the city’s best interest to encourage social responsibility goals rather than align with companies that disrespect indigenous treaties, commit human rights abuses, and destroy the environment. The policy specifically discourages investments in entities that “manufacture, distribute or provide financing to industries such as tobacco products, weapons, military systems, nuclear power, and fossil fuels,” and encourages companies that “support community well being through safe, environmentally sound practices, and fair labor practices.”

Faith Leaders Protest Pipelines Statewide

September 18, 2017 Staff, www.augustafreepress.com Resist! Faith, Pipelines, Protests, Virginia

By Staff of Augusta Free Press - In an unprecedented mobilization of clergy and other faith leaders, Virginia congregations turned out in seven cities today with music, prayer, and silence to honor recent hurricane victims while protesting Governor McAuliffe’s Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines for fracked gas. Kicking off two consecutive days of statewide protest, faith leaders gathered outside of seven regional Department of Environmental Quality offices in Richmond, Roanoke, Harrisonburg, Virginia Beach, Abingdon, Glen Allen, and Woodbridge. Observers cannot recall such a large organized faith protest on any environmental issue in the history of Virginia. The action today set the stage for additional protests tomorrow where citizens in the same seven Virginia cities will deliver official letters of protest to the Governor’s DEQ offices representing regional concerns over the pipeline, from Northern Virginia, to the coast, to the mountains. In Richmond, two dozen activists are expected to peacefully “sit in” at the Virginia DEQ headquarters until arrested. At today’s event in Roanoke, Reverend Brad Delaney said: “This pipeline (Mountain Valley Pipeline) will create carbon emissions going into our environment. God created us as human beings to care for our home, which is God’s creation and by doing that to care for one another and particularly for the least and the last, those that are poor. So I come here today to stand for them.”

Atlantic Coast Pipeline Opponents Turn To God To Stop Project

September 18, 2017 Martha Quillin, www.newsobserver.com Resist! Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Pipelines

By Martha Quillin for The News and Observer - Builders of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline will need to give more information to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality before the agency can decide whether to approve the part of the disputed gas line that would run through the state, the agency said Thursday. The pipeline is a project of Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and Southern Company Gas, who had hoped to begin clearing land for construction in November, build in 2018 and have the pipeline in use in 2019. DEQ’s request, issued Thursday, could push that schedule back. While the pipeline would need additional state and federal approvals before construction could begin, the water quality permit is a major hurdle. Meanwhile, pipeline opponents are stepping up their campaign to try to stop the project, saying it’s a religious crusade for which they are willing to lay their bodies down. “At its core, it’s a moral and spiritual issue,” said Greg Yost, a ninth-grade math teacher from Madison County who is working full-time to try to stop the pipeline. Yost began fasting two weeks before DEQ’s Sept. 18 deadline to respond to the permit application, and this week has spent his days outside the department’s Jones Street office in downtown Raleigh. Where a political issue might hold interest for a short while, he said, “By saying this is a moral issue, we’re signaling that we’re in it for the long haul. We will fight to the end, and if that means we have to put ourselves physically in the way of the pipeline, we’re ready to do that.”

North Carolina Delays Decision On Atlantic Coast Pipeline

September 16, 2017 Elizabeth Ouzts, www.southeastenergynews.com Resist! Atlantic Coast Pipeline, North Carolina, Pipelines

By Elizabeth Ouzts for Southeast Energy News - Faced with a Monday deadline and a lopsided number of public comments opposing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration has delayed until mid-December its decision on whether to permit the controversial project. Without fanfare or press release late yesterday, the state issued a four-page “request for additional information,” part of its duty under the federal Clean Water Act to ensure the natural gas pipeline won’t harm the over 320 rivers and streams and hundreds of acres of wetlands in its path. Pipeline foes hailed the action, which appeared to vindicate a critique they’ve been leveling for months against the project, slated to hug the state’s I-95 corridor and pass through eight eastern North Carolina counties. “The current application leaves out critical information,” said Geoff Gisler, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “There are literally hundreds of streams and wetlands that the company has asked to dig through with hardly any analysis.” The delay followed a series of rowdy hearings and meetings last month that were packed with pipeline opponents, and the receipt of over 9,000 written public comments – 85 percent urging rejection.

New Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Isn’t Worth The Risks, Minnesota Officials Say

September 14, 2017 Phil Mckenna, www.insideclimatenews.org Create! Minnesota, New Economy, Oil, Pipelines

By Phil Mckenna for Inside Climate News - The Minnesota Department of Commerce recommended this week that a major tar sands oil pipeline should not be expanded and that the old, existing line should be shut down. Its reason: the state's refineries don't need additional crude oil, so there's no point in taking on extra risks. The recommendation is the latest sign of opposition to fossil fuel pipelines at the state level, just as the federal government is strongly supporting them. The Minnesota Department of Commerce's report, submitted to state regulators who will eventually decide whether or not to approve the pipeline, cites a consulting firm that determined Minnesota's refineries are already running at peak capacity and that there's no sign of a long-term increase in local demand for fuel. The analysis concludes that the proposed Enbridge Line 3 pipeline project, from Hardisty, in Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wisconsin, isn't worth the risks. "In light of the serious risks and effects on the natural and socioeconomic environments of the existing Line 3 and the limited benefit that the existing Line 3 provides to Minnesota refineries, it is reasonable to conclude that Minnesota would be better off if Enbridge proposed to cease operations of the existing Line 3, without any new pipeline being built," the department states. Environmental advocates said that the line might still be approved, despite the report's conclusions.

Resisting The South’s Pipeline Building Boom

September 9, 2017 Sue Sturgis, www.facingsouth.org Resist! FERC, Pipelines

By Sue Sturgis for Facing South - The U.S. South is at the epicenter of the nationwide push to build new onshore natural gas pipelines, which carry serious environmental and economic risks. Of the 56 projects that have applied for permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) since 2013, 31 run through Southern states. But the building campaign is meeting resistance in the region, with anti-pipeline organizers holding a series of protests and other events this month targeting both state and federal regulators. In North Carolina, activists with the Alliance to Protect Our People and the Places We Live launched a vigil outside the state Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) headquarters in Raleigh this week as the agency considers whether to grant water quality permits needed for construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a project being built by Dominion, Duke Energy and Southern Company Gas that's proposed to run from West Virginia through Virginia to North Carolina. Some of the activists are taking part in a water-only fast as part of the action, which is being billed as a "fast to support DEQ."

Dozens Of Land Owners Sue Over Eminent Domain For FERC Pipelines

September 8, 2017 Duncan Adams, www.roanoke.com Resist! FERC, Land, Lawsuit, Pipelines

By Duncan Adams for The Roanoke Times - Dozens of landowners potentially affected by the Mountain Valley Pipeline or the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and other foes of the controversial projects have filed a federal lawsuit that challenges eminent domain provisions of the Natural Gas Act. The suit contends that these provisions, as implemented by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, violate Fifth Amendment constitutional protections by allowing private, for-profit pipeline companies to wield eminent domain to acquire easements across private properties without evidence that the projects are needed or will serve the public good. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, contends that FERC’s approval of the pipelines “is virtually certain and imminent” and it asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to intervene. The plaintiffs and their attorney, Carolyn Elefant, a former FERC lawyer, implore the court to stop FERC from issuing the certificates of public convenience and necessity — which the pipeline companies need to begin construction or to exercise eminent domain — until the lawsuit can be litigated. Defendants include the two pipeline companies, each a limited liability company incorporated in Delaware, as well as FERC and its three commissioners.

Sacred Space On Jones Street

September 8, 2017 Staff, www.2017acpfast.wordpress.com Resist! Environment, Pipelines

By Staff of Fast To Support Deq - Pictured above are Maple Osterbrink of Durham, Steve Norris of Asheville, and Kay Reibold of Raleigh. Steve and Kay have already begun laying groundwork for the construction of a solarized sacred space of some sort in the direct path of the pipeline should that become necessary later this fall. Last week on a conference call, however, Steve made the insightful observation that the first sacred space we’ll build will be the community of fasters and pipeline resisters we develop these two weeks in Raleigh and around the state. Shortly after the picture was taken, we began making Steve’s words a reality. We lit a few pinches of dried sage on fire which Maple had thought to bring and we placed it down on the sidewalk between us. Then as the smoke rose, we joined hands together as Kay and Maple spoke from the heart about their hopes for the coming days. The moment reminded me of last March during APPPL’s walk along the proposed route of the ACP when the Lumbee invited us into the sacred circle at their spring equinox ceremonies. Sage and Spirit, we learned today, are as powerful on the streets of Raleigh as in the beauty of rural Robeson County.

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