Note: Cover image credit – Betty Werner/Four Corners Farm in Franklin County, VA
UPDATE 3:23 pm – Cries of “cowards” and “shame” as the Virginia State Water Control Board “reversed course Friday…withdrew its earlier decision to hold a hearing to consider revoking a water quality certification it issued for the controversial natural gas pipeline in December 2017.” Ugh.
The Virginia State Water Control Board is meeting this morning (see video, below), and as Laurence Hammock of the Roanoke Times reports, “may start the formal process of revoking a permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”
Clearly, this project can and should be stopped, for a whole host of environmental and economic reasons. For starters, as Wild Virginia pointed out yesterday, “the evidence shows a systematic and continual pattern of flouting the law and causing harm as a consequence.” Wild Virginia adds, correctly, that “The State Water Control Board (Board) has the authority to revoke the water quality certification for upland activities that it issued to Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC (MVP). The violations MVP has committed and the damage it has done easily meet and exceed the thresholds defined in Virginia law upon which revocation may be based.” I’d further note that this fracked-gas pipeline alone “would be responsible for close to 90 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, equivalent to 26 coal plants or 19 million vehicles on the road.” Can you even imagine the uproar if there was a proposal to build 26 new coal-fired power plants or add 19 million vehicles to the road in Virginia? People would rightly go nuts. Yet this pipeline is the greenhouse gas equivalent, and many people – including most Virginia elected officials – are either remaining silent or actively encouraging this project. Why?
Three hours and counting as the Va. State Water Control Board continues meeting in closed session about the Sec. 401 certificate for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. More than 100 people are waiting for action. Dozens of state police troopers here to keep watch. What’s there 2 hide? pic.twitter.com/7SfLtctjsx
— Chris Hurst (@ChrisHurstVA) March 1, 2019
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