Protecting the heritage, resources and economy of the Allegheny-Blue Ridge region ABRA Update #120 – March 10, 2017
Call for DEIS to be Rescinded and Revised
The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline should be “rescinded and revised, and that the current public comment period be extended or suspended,” so stated a motion filed March 8 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by Friends of Nelson and Wild Virginia, two ABRA member organizations, along with Heartwood, a regional network of citizens concerned with protecting forest lands.
In the motion, the groups state: “Friends of Nelson, Wild Virginia and Heartwood believe that the mandate for a full analysis of the ‘public convenience and necessity’ for pipelines involves more than responding to a professed need for capacity. The new, late-filed information from Dominion is relevant and significant, directly concerning many of the environmental issues the Commission is required to review and fully analyze. The burden is on the Commission to fully investigate the environmental risks and costs associated with the ACP, including all new and supplemental information.”
Mountaintop Removal Will Be a Significant Consequence of the ACP
The focus on environmental consequences of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline(ACP) has largely centered upon impacts on water resources and plant and animal species. Recent work done by the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition (DPMC) has broadened that concern to an examination of the effect the ACP would have on the many mountain ridges that the project would cross.
Dominion Transportation, Inc., managing partner for the ACP, has indicated in resource filings it has made with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that in several locations in the mountainous areas of the route the pipeline would run along the tops of mountaintop ridges, in some instances for up to at least a mile. Because many of these ridges are very narrow and formed by very steep slopes, to achieve the width of land necessary to construct the pipeline, it would be necessary to remove the tops of these ridges, perhaps by as much as 50 feet of elevation. It is estimated that there are over 20 locations on the ACP route where mountaintop removal would be necessary. The serious impact of removing such ridgetops is two-fold: 1) the visual impact it would have in altering the scenic view would be significant; 2) the earth and rock removed from the ridgetops would seriously exacerbate the already large concern of erosion and sediment control associated with the project. Dominion has so far been vague about how it intends to manage this problem (see the ABRA Update story from issue #119 on the company’s lack of responsiveness to the U.S. Forest Service).
ABRA has a new website!
In response to the growing need for more information in an accessible format, ABRA’s unveiled this week a re-designed website (www.abralliance.org). The new site is more visually driven, better organized, has easier navigation and contains a functional search capability. Users can more easily find studies and reports. We welcome your feedback and suggestions for further features and improvements.
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