by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Jan 12, 2017 | Pipelines
Cookie Cole, her face a portrait of grief and ire, flings toward the sky a handful of creek water. Award-winning documentary filmmaker and photographer Marino Colmano of Blacksburg captured the moment. Cole laments the risk that the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Jan 12, 2017 | Health & Safety
How is this related to our focus on the pipeline? With fossil fuel infrastructure comes extensive health and safety concerns. With our health care compromised, well, the problems compound… Virginia Organizing, our umbrella organization, asked us to post this to...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Jan 12, 2017 | Compressor Stations
DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/TIMES-DISPATCH Doug Ange (foreground) joined other Buckingham County residents Thursday at a public hearing on a special-use permit that would allow the construction of a natural gas-powered compressor station....
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Jan 12, 2017 | Compressor Stations
JORDAN MILES | HERALD Pipeline opponent Annie Lou Parr gave an emotional testimony to the board of supervisors Thursday, urging them to deny the needed permit to construct the compressor station. County supervisors in Buckingham approved a special use permit for a...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Jan 3, 2017 | Compressor Stations
ATLANTIC COAST PIPELINE, LLC ATLANTIC COAST PIPELINE and DOMINION TRANSMISSION, INC. SUPPLY HEADER PROJECT Supplemental Filing June 17, 2016 APPENDIX B Updated Air Permit Application for Compressor Station 2 (Buckingham Compressor Station) Read full document here: ACP...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Jan 1, 2017 | Renewables, Solar
Renewable energy has reached an important milestone. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has determined that in many parts of the world, solar energy is now the same price or even cheaper than fossil fuels for the first time. In a handbook released this month, the WEF...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Jan 1, 2017 | Regulatory Permit Process
The horse isn’t dead but it’s surely taking a beating. “Incomplete” and “insufficient.” A “rolling document” that challenges public review. Hazards that “have not been not fully assessed.” These and other comments filed Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Dec 31, 2016 | Regulatory Permit Process
A long-awaited federal draft environmental impact statement issued Friday says Dominion’s proposed 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline would have “some adverse and significant environmental impacts,” though most would be reduced to “less-than-significant levels” with...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Dec 28, 2016 | Bio-Solids, Sludge
The public comment period for the application of sludge to our neighboring lands closes on January 6. Submitting comments allows you to testify at the State Water Control Board [SWCB] meeting in March 2017, where final approval is expected. It also lets the Department...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Dec 26, 2016 | Compressor Stations, Events, Uncategorized
Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC [ACP] has applied for a special use permit [SUP] for a proposed 53,000 + hp compressor station in an agricultural A-1 zone in the Woods Corner/Union Hill neighborhood on Rt 56, adjacent to the Transco pipeline. The Board of Supervisors will...
by Kaveri Helsley | Dec 23, 2016 | Coal, Economic Impacts
A golf course built on 1.5 million tons of coal ash that loses $100,000 a month and is a magnet for headlines about potential environmental contamination might not seem like a property to covet. Yet for three years, a bitter legal brawl that reached the Supreme Court...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Dec 22, 2016 | Compressor Stations
Local lawmakers are bewildered by Dominion Resources Inc.’s latest plans to upgrade a natural gas pipeline compressor station in Loudoun County, Va., less than two years after the company promised no new compressor expansions in the area would be forthcoming. The...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Dec 22, 2016 | Pipelines, Press Releases
Groups call on FERC to issue completely revised Draft EIS. WASHINGTON, D.C. – Over the past three months, more than 16,000 people have sent comments or signed petitions to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission demanding the agency do a thorough, accurate and...
by Heidi Dhivya Berthoud | Dec 19, 2016 | Fossil Fuels, Politics of energy
After eight years of being banished and sometimes vilified by the Obama administration, the fossil fuel industry is enjoying a remarkable resurgence as its executives and lobbyists shape President-elect Donald Trump’s policy agenda and staff his administration. The...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 18, 2016 | Health & Safety, Pipelines
Environmental groups are voicing opposition to a proposed natural gas pipeline that would cut across the Appalachian Trail in Virginia and require clearing a previously protected corridor of forest. The Mountain Valley Pipeline would transport natural gas from...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 17, 2016 | Endangered Species, Health & Safety, Pollution - Other Sources
DALLAS — A chemical leak from an asphalt plant that led Corpus Christi officials to warn residents this week not to drink the water was apparently reported a week earlier, according to an email from a state environmental official that was obtained Friday. The internal...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 16, 2016 | Health & Safety, Politics of energy, Pollution - Other Sources
PORTLAND, Ore. — Communities throughout the Northwest are rejecting fossil-fuel infrastructures, and on Wednesday, Portland went a step further by approving a new zoning rule banning large, fossil-fuel terminals from coming to the city. Dan Serres, conservation...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 16, 2016 | Health & Safety, Politics of energy, Pollution - Other Sources
HARRISBURG, Pa. – The federal Renewable Fuel Standard has led to the destruction of millions of acres of wildlife habitat and has endangered water supplies, according to a new report. The National Wildlife Federation report, “Fueling Destruction,”...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 15, 2016 | Compressor Stations, Health & Safety
If it is built, those living near a proposed 53,515 horsepower natural gas fired compressor station in Buckingham County would be forced to endure air and noise pollution, according to a new 19-page technical report titled “Pollution Report: Unfair, Illegal and...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 15, 2016 | Health & Safety, Pollution - Other Sources
(Photo: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Residents here were warned late Wednesday to avoid using tap water because a chemical possibly contaminated the city’s water supply. Thursday morning, city officials confirmed the chemical, which came...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 14, 2016 | Fossil Fuels, Fracking, Health & Safety
Environmental agency’s study on hydraulic fracturing walks back earlier findings. WASHINGTON – Fracking can affect drinking water supplies in certain circumstances, the Obama administration said in a long-awaited report issued Tuesday, leaving open the possibility of...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 13, 2016 | FERC communications, Fossil Fuels, Pipelines
CHARLESTON, W. Va. – A spate of proposed gas pipeline projects has drawn sharp criticism from environmental advocates, who say the federal permitting agency has a built-in bias toward the industry. Last week, nearly 70 people from almost a dozen states testified at...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 13, 2016 | Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, Health & Safety, Pollution - Other Sources
A newly unearthed missive from Lenny Bernstein, a climate expert with the oil firm for 30 years, shows concerns over high presence of carbon dioxide in enormous gas field in south-east Asia factored into decision not to tap it ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 13, 2016 | Endangered Species, Fossil Fuels, Pipelines
Electronic monitoring equipment failed to detect a pipeline rupture that spewed more than 176,000 gallons of crude oil into a North Dakota creek, according to the pipeline’s operator, about 150 miles from the site of the Standing Rock protests. The potential for a...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 13, 2016 | Compressor Stations, Fossil Fuels, Pipelines
A public hearing is set for Thursday, Jan. 5, at 6 p.m. for members of the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors to hear public comment on a requested special use permit for a 53,515 horsepower natural gas-fired compressor station as part of the proposed Atlantic...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 13, 2016 | Endangered Species, Health & Safety, Politics of energy
RANGER, Texas — The leaders of this former oil boom town never gave 2-year-old Adam Walton a chance to avoid the poison. It came in city water, delivered to his family’s tap through pipes nearly a century old. For almost a year, the little boy bathed in lead-tainted...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 12, 2016 | Climate Change, Endangered Species, Fossil Fuels
Rapid rise in methane emissions in 10 years surprises scientists. Methane warms planet 20 times as much as similar CO2 volumes but lack of monitoring means scientists can’t be sure of sources. Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 12, 2016 | Compressor Stations, Natural Gas
BUCKINGHAM COUNTY, Va. (WVIR) – Supervisors in Buckingham County are considering Dominion’s request to build a compressor station for its proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Opponents fear it will destroy the environment. Dominion needs a special use permit...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 11, 2016 | Climate Change, Coal, Fossil Fuels
West Virginia sits atop a treasure chest of coal resources. Coal began to define the state’s culture, history, and the economy as early as 1742, when John Peter Salling unearthed the coal in present-day Boone County, West Virginia. Today, all but 4.5% of the state’s...
by Nelson Bailey | Dec 11, 2016 | Conservation, Environmental Justice
The Japan Times SEATTLE – Washington on Thursday became the first U.S. state to sue the agrochemical giant Monsanto over pervasive pollution from PCBs, the toxic industrial chemicals that have accumulated in plants, fish and people around the globe for decades....
