Powerful Comments from Southern Environmental Law Center Request Air Board Reject Union Hill Compressor Station

See below for comments from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), requesting that the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board deny a permit for Dominion Energy’s proposed fracked-gas-pipeline compressor station in historically African-American Union Hill. A few key points include:

• “The Board Should Not Rely on DEQ’s and Atlantic’s Incomplete Preliminary Screening Data to Determine Whether Union Hill Is an Environmental Justice Community”
• “DEQ’s Site-Suitability Analysis Presented to the Board at the December 19, 2018 Meeting Does Not Consider Environmental Justice Concerns.”
• “Compliance with NAAQS Does Not Resolve Environmental Justice Concerns.”
• “In light of the serious flaws with DEQ’s analysis of site-suitability, this Board must independently assess whether siting the Buckingham compressor station in the
  environmental justice community of Union Hill is suitable under Va. Code § 10.1-1307.
  We urge the Board to disapprove this permit on the grounds that Union Hill is not a
  suitable site for the proposed compressor station.”
• “Finally, we are discouraged by procedural obstacles that have frustrated    meaningful public participation. First, we object to the decision to initiate a 14-day comment on the Friday before the Christmas holidays with no advance notice…”