Tom Triplett and his wife own property in Montgomery County that could be affected by the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would be about 1,300 feet from their home.
Neighbors Bob and Donna Jones and Tom and Bonnie Triplett share two strong feelings that sometimes dog their waking hours and bedevil their sleep: bewilderment and dread.
Bewilderment because the couples, whose properties abut along Mt. Tabor Road in Montgomery County, struggle to understand why Mountain Valley Pipeline would choose to bury its 42-inch diameter natural gas pipeline through a neighborhood rife with sinkholes, sinking streams, caves and other features of karst terrain.
Dread because the neighbors anticipate that the pipeline would steal both the magic and the value of the rural properties they have grown to know intimately over the course of more than three decades.
Another distinguishing quality the couples seem to share: determination. They have been resolved to either help stop the project altogether or persuade regulators that routing the pipeline through the Mt. Tabor Road neighborhood is ill-advised.
Bob Jones, a retired professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, has filed, by his estimate, more than 240 pages of footnoted material with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He has asserted that the pipeline route should avoid his and other karst-laden properties along Mt. Tabor Road, including the Tripletts’ 50 acres, because of risks to both water quality and public safety. FERC will decide whether the interstate pipeline offers enough public benefit to offset the environmental damage it is destined to cause.
The Roanoke Times – Duncan Adams – 08.20.2017
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