Buckingham County, VA – Earlier this month, activists kayaked the James River along the planned route of Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). The pipeline route goes from West Virginia to North Carolina with plans to connect it to the Transco line, also in Union Hill, where the two will intersect and connect to export facilities.
This plan for pipeline expansion threatens to negatively impact watersheds in Richmond; Washington, DC; and other nearby areas. The pipeline will also cross the territories of four native tribes, a fact that some say was overlooked during approvals issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Map of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Dominion plans to build a large compressor station for the pipeline in Union Hill, a historic Black community founded by descendants of freed slaves in unincorporated Buckingham County near the Cumberland State Forest, west of Richmond. Local residents see the pipeline company’s disregard for their community as part of an established history of environmental racism in Virginia.
“As African-Americans living in a county where racial inequality and retaliation have been facts of life for over 300 years, where many of their ancestors were enslaved, the community of Union Hill’s lack of access to political decision-making makes them vulnerable to Dominion Power’s corporate profit-making plans.” – Lakshmi Fjord, anthropologist and activist with Friends of Buckingham County
Unicorn Riot -09.29.2017
Posted by Nelson Bailey
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