I am a property owner that would be affected by both the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. In fact, the farm my family has operated in Buckingham County for more than 100 years is proposed to get a full mile of the ACP, almost immediately after the gas leaves the compression station, right through the middle of our pastures, hay fields and cropland, very near our homes, barns and other structures. The MVP compression station is likely near our Montgomery County property but so far we are not expecting it to go through our property. Since both Montgomery and Buckingham counties are likely to have compression stations, I’ve been actively comparing what is occurring in the two.
I am opposing both pipelines and working with others on both. To date, I have not seen or heard anyone leading the ACP effort make any type of suggestion related to the MVP.
Unfortunately, after years of work as a Virginia consumer advocate, I suspect that the ACP is the line of the two more likely to be built. Dominion “owns” Virginia’s leadership and has worked hard to put its line in more rural counties with less active and less educated citizens. At the beginning of the first meeting about the pipeline I attended in Blacksburg the audience of well over 200 people was asked how many people present had doctoral degrees. Three quarters of the audience stood up. Montgomery County’s Board of Supervisors got the MVP folks to do a public meeting before the open houses occurred. It has supported citizens who are struggling to determine what is going to happen.
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Far fewer people are involved in Buckingham and many citizens are still unaware of the pipeline. The board of supervisors in Buckingham is led by a Dominion employee. It passed a resolution of support for the pipeline, which it has since refused to rescind, before anyone knew anything about it. To date, the only public meeting for the pipeline held in Buckingham is one open house, scheduled in direct conflict with the annual stew and meeting of Historic Buckingham, reducing attendance. The scoping meetings were held in March, outside of the county, and repeated requests to hold a meeting in the community affected by the compression station have been ignored.
As I have participated in activities for both pipelines, Dominion has clearly managed the political situation and even the meetings with more finesse. It clearly has a good relationship with FERC. MVP was not helped by the FERC employee who conducted the recent scoping meetings. He just inflamed the already upset landowners. Dominion’s president frames the situation of the pipelines as the ACP will meet base load demands while the MVP is going to serve gas producers. If that analysis is accepted, the ACP will beat the MVP out if there is only one line truly needed.
It is natural that people expect competition among the lines. Dominion is months ahead of the MVP and has far more political clout. Virginia leaders claim they have no influence in the decision and would never oppose Dominion anyway. FERC is set up to approve pipelines. It has only disapproved one in history. So far, FERC has refused to consider the total impact of all of the lines and has claimed it cannot consider the lifecycle of the system that is being created.
In my experience, Virginia leaders and politicians are now generally viewing all rural areas as expendable. I’ve even been told that I should move to get broadband and lower electric rates and that society will pay people welfare to live in rural areas. Honestly, the territory the ACP traverses is overall more rural and affected citizens include far fewer active people who believe they can influence change than the MVP.
Please do not encourage people to believe there is competition among the pipelines. If there is only one, Dominion is far more likely to meet with success because of its political influence and its comparative schedule advantage, but citizens need to be united in opposition to all pipelines if we’re to have a chance. The companies trying to build pipelines are probably delighting in the division the May 12 Roanoke Times editorial (“More evidence that we don’t count”) enhances.
