Friends of Buckingham has been working for 2½ years to fight the only Virginia compressor station planned for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). For the past year, we have been working closely with PSR in highly productive collaborations.
The compressor station has been proposed to be built in Union Hill in Buckingham County. Union Hill is an 85% African American and historic Freedmen community in the very center of Virginia. Dominion Resources hopes to build this large toxic pollutant- emitting industrial facility in the middle of closely situated homes, farms, and historic Black Churches in a district zoned agricultural-only. Residents have been good stewards of their land. The ambient air quality is presently so high, the developers now ask for the highest level of fracked gas-related pollutants allowed. Residents are rightly greatly concerned about the health impacts of living close to a source of methane, nitrous oxide, benzene, radon, particulate matter and many other known health hazards. The environmental justice issues involved with this proposal also concern the loss of Freedmen heritage lands, passed down for over 150 years, first by former slaves.
Because of our concern about pollution, several of us in Friends of Buckingham (FoB) have formed a research group to identify best practices for testing baseline ambient air and water quality. This will allow us to determine just how clean the air and water are around the proposed compressor station site. If the station is built, it will allow us to track changes in air and water purity. We have been fortunate to be able to draw on two PSR experts, Dr. Larysa Dyrszka of PSR-New York and Barbara Gottlieb of the national office. They co-authored PSR’s recent report, Too Dirty, Too Dangerous: Why Health Professionals Reject Natural Gas.
We have already been able to use PSR resources in a number of ways:
- Too Dirty, Too Dangerous formed the basis for our call to PSR members in Virginia to comment on the ACP Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
- It informed the health component of my environmental justice comments about Union Hill and also those of the Southern Environmental Law Center.
- I taught a class at Longwood University recently about the health impacts of fracked gas infrastructure, using the slide presentation Barb Gottlieb, Director of Environment and Health Programs at PSR, gave at the public hearing in Buckingham last fall.
Both I and my FoB colleague Chad Oba have accepted the invitation to be on the PSR Ad Hoc Advisory Council, where we look forward to forming a Virginia PSR chapter. We know that working with PSR will help us stop dirty energy and build momentum for clean, renewable energy in Virginia. We look forward to bringing community solar, offshore wind and other clean forms of energy to Virginians!
By Lakshmi Fjord, Ph.D.
May 26, 2017
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