In the path of MVP through Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, law abiding, taxpaying rural landowners — many of them low income, elderly, veterans, people of color and of tribal nations, and the disabled — have sought regulatory, legislative and judicial relief on issues from the environment to human health and safety. Too many authorities choose to ignore the threats of a massive 42-inch gas pipeline, coated with known carcinogens, under 1400 psi of compression with a proven potential for explosions in steep, landslide-prone terrain, and a quarter-mile blast zone to destroy our ever more precious waters and sacred places.

In late October 2017, MVP sued nearly 500 landowners who had refused to sell easements. Approximately 300 in Virginia and 200 in West Virginia were herded to federal courts for “early entry” hearings.

In mid-January landowners were afforded one day to present evidence challenging MVP’s request to blast, trench through mountain, valley, and stream — before the company ever paid them a penny.

By month’s end the Roanoke court gave MVP immediate access — reminding landowners “one of the burdens of ‘common citizenship’ is that a person’s land is sometimes taken for the common good.” West Virginia courts followed suit.

Eminent domain cases typically result in a money judgment or negotiated settlement — so called “just” compensation. Thus, shackled on the downside of this playing field, most have settled. Less than ten remain set for trial. Only one of the original landowner cases has actually made it to a jury.

Attorneys, appraisers and other experts commonly take their fee from a percentage of the total easement sale, from a security posted by MVP in the court.

The landowner must pay attorneys, appraisers and taxes from the sale proceeds. Rural landowners — often strangers to a metrocentric and, by definition, privileged legal system ruled by jurists of significant government and industry experience — see it as ripe for abuse by those who would capitalize on their misfortune. One asked a prospective attorney in a public forum, “You mean for you to get paid, I have to lose?”

For MVP’s environmental offenses, hundreds of stream and groundwater contaminations in the Greenbrier, Roanoke, Blackwater and Pigg River watersheds, state agencies have ordered “enforcement” fines at $2.7 million — a minor cost of doing business for MVP.

Despite prohibitions on water crossings, MVP earthmovers are aggressively clearing mountaintops above fragile waters across Giles, Franklin, and Roanoke Counties.

The flailing investment, mushroomed from $3.1 to 6.5 billion, may never be built, yet MVP may remain free to sell easements to the next bidder. Several FERC Chairs have questioned pipeline certifications based upon “affiliate” contracts between corporate relatives as evidence of “public need”. Now FERC has an entire docket devoted to this and related questions.

In light of the necessarily rapid change of energy policy in a climate emergency, why would any public servant allow a private, out of state, “self-insured” LLC, with no named employees, continue to destroy over 300 miles of Appalachian mountains, forest, water and air — and farms, homeplaces, culture and legacy — the very fabric of communities?

Giles County landowner Karolyn Givens lost her husband Clarence, a stalwart defender of historic Newport, Virginia, against MVP destruction, to sudden illness in 2017.

Through her grief, Karolyn went forward, leading landowners to a U.S. Supreme Court challenge to MVP. The Court denied case consideration in 2019. Givens said this about her recent futile pleas with state and federal agencies to stop MVP blasting and trenching though fragile karst aquifers across the Historic Leffel Farm:

“In our generations, accumulated wealth that enhances only the already wealthy has been legitimized by legislation and is unraveling our democracy. Gas industry power over FERC seems an example of that.

The losses of landowners and communities in the path of MVP’s destruction do not seem to matter. Will I give up this fight? Absolutely not. I will give testimony to the ugliness of the ruin of our environment for the pockets of the already wealthy. Unless citizens in this democracy continue to call out wrong, our democracy will not live on.”

Majors and Jarrell are members of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights executive committee. She lives in Montgomery County; he lives in West Virginia.