Local journalism, or its absence, helps cover and shape Atlantic Coast Pipeline development, journalist reports

As the U.S. Supreme Court mulls a pivotal case involving the construction of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, one journalist considers the role local journalism can play in shaping local opinions about pipeline construction.

Many of the North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia counties the pipeline will cross are poor and rural, and some have large minority populations. Many do not have a strong local-news ecosystem, either because metropolitan papers have cut back coverage or local newspapers have shuttered, never existed or fell down on the job, Lyndsey Gilpin writes for the Columbia Journalism Review. Gilpin is the founder and editor of Southerly, an independent media organization that covers ecology, justice and culture in the American South.

According to the University of North Carolina's Penny Abernathy's research on news deserts, "in about half of the 25 counties along the Atlantic Coast Pipeline route, print news comprises a single weekly paper; several weekly or daily papers cover more than one county," Gilpin reports.

When the pipeline was first proposed in 2014, local and regional newspapers reported on it (some still do) and several nationwide news publications covered it, but comprehensive coverage has mostly faded as the process wears on. Local and regional news coverage is often the only way such places receive any press attention; national media mostly tends to "parachute in to cover major updates or catastrophes or if they need a tie-in to President Trump’s policies—a dynamic that can perpetuate inaccurate stereotypes about these places," Gilpin writes.

Meanwhile, the absence of local news media "leaves ample space for powerful campaigns by [Duke Energy] and [Dominion Energy], the pipeline’s developers and buyers of its natural gas, as well as industry-aligned lobbyists and politicians, to shape the pipeline narrative," Gilpin writes. "Another result is misinformation and confusion about the status of a massive energy project that affects tens of thousands of people, several endangered species, and a variety of fragile ecosystems. The number of permanent jobs the pipeline is estimated to create varies, depending on whom you speak with. In some cases, property owners have been caught unaware of their rights or legal options when Dominion came knocking to claim eminent domain."

Local reporters who would like to do in-depth reporting on the pipeline often have little time and few resources to do so, though projects like ProPublica's Local Reporting Network have helped, Gilpin writes. Most local reporters only have enough bandwidth to focus on reaction stories.

Independent journalist Mason Adams of the Roanoke area, who has covered pipelines for various news outlets over the past few years, said such coverage is complicated, and local reporters need more training to deal with Freedom of Information Act requests, regulatory agencies, major companies, and court reporting. "Smaller papers can’t set aside an entire body to cover this, much less over five to six years," Adams told Gilpin.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline hits biggest roadblock yet as federal appeals panel throws out critical environmental permit

Proposed route of Atlantic Coast Pipeline
(Associated Press map; click to enlarge it)

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline has been dealt one of its biggest setbacks by a federal appeals court, which threw out an important permit last week, saying lead developer Dominion Energy didn't adequately protect endangered or threatened species in the pipeline's proposed path and the federal agency that is supposed to protect them didn't do its job as it fast-tracked permitting.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "vacated a permit that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued last year just 19 days after the same court blocked the agency’s previous finding that the massive natural gas pipeline would not jeopardize the viability of four endangered or threatened species," Michael Martz reports for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote in the opinion that Fish and Wildlife "appears to have lost sight of its mandate" under the Endangered Species Act by approving the permit so quickly, and that the agency failed to show how the pipeline wouldn't threaten endangered bumblebees in Bath County, Virginia, on the West Virginia border, or freshwater mussels in three West Virginia waterways. "The ruling also concluded that the reissued permit failed to establish 'enforceable take limits' for an endangered bat species in Virginia and West Virginia and threatened crustaceans that live in underground limestone karst formations in the Shenandoah Valley," Martz reports.

Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby said he expects the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Service will be able to quickly resolve the issues raised by the court, and says he believes the project remains on track to be completed by late 2021, Martz reports.

This isn't the first time the pipeline has faced legal roadblocks. "A series of adverse rulings by the 4th Circuit on federal permits for the project prompted the pipeline company, led by Dominion, to change its construction plans earlier this year," Martz reports. "The company suspended work in December after the 4th Circuit issued a stay on the biological opinion for the entire length of the pipeline, not just the 100 miles or so that Dominion contends would affect endangered or threatened species addressed in the permit."

Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled, but landowners still unsure what will happen to easements on their property

Atlantic Coast Pipeline proposed route (Associated Press map)

Atlantic Coast Pipeline developers used eminent domain to force thousands of landowners to sell them narrow strips of land to bury the pipeline. But in July 2020, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy canceled the project. Over a year later, those landowners still don't know what will happen to the easements crossing their property.

"Some landowners have miles of the pipeline already installed on their properties. Contractors for Duke and Dominion also cleared trees along more than 110 miles across West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, leaving about half of the felled trees on the property," Emily Allen reports for Mountain State Spotlight. From West Virginia to North Carolina, "The proposed pipeline would’ve crossed more than 2,600 easements, covering nearly 4,300 acres of land — all of which Duke and Dominion now own the rights to," according to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Dominion spokesperson Christine Mitchell told Allen in an email that the company will hang onto the easements for the next few years to "develop the most responsible approach" for restoration. "We plan to keep the easements until all restoration and monitoring are complete," she wrote. "However, we will evaluate individual landowner requests on a case-by-case basis."

Landowners fear the easements could be sold to another pipeline developer after the land is restored in one to two years, said Isak Howell, a Roanoke-based lawyer with Appalachian Mountain Advocates, which represents dozens of landowners in ACP cases. FERC hasn’t addressed the relinquishment of easements, Allen reports.

Atlantic Coast pipeline construction allowed to resume

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has allowed construction on the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline to resume Monday, a month after a federal court revoked some of the project's permits.

"In early August, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Fish and Wildlife Service needed to revisit a key endangered species permit," Brittany Patterson reports for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. "It also ruled the National Park Service needed to reissue a right-of-way approval to allow the pipeline to pass under the Blue Ridge Parkway."

On Sept. 17, FERC sent a letter to pipeline officials saying construction could continue since both permits had been received. Environmental groups, which have repeatedly challenged the pipeline in court, are not happy. D.J. Gerken with the Southern Environmental Law Center said in a statement: "Rather than taking the time to address the major problems we have seen in federal agencies' reviews of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, these agencies continue to rush through a rubberstamp process that ignores legal requirements – not to mention the public interest."

Country-folk duo use words and music to fight proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline

The proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would run from West Virginia to North Carolina, is drawing plenty of criticism in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, most notably from a country-folk duo made famous by the “Prairie Home Companion” radio show, Frances Stead Sellers reports for The Washington Post. Musicians Robin and Linda Williams object to the pipeline that is designed to "carry up to 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of methane for more than 500 miles through the Shenandoah Valley, across the Blue Ridge Mountains and over the Piedmont and then the Tidewater to North Carolina, burrowing its way through both public and private lands." (News & Advance map)

A spokesman for energy giant Dominion Recources "explains that if everything stays on schedule, the company could get approval for the project next summer, start construction later that year and go into operation before the end of 2018," Sellers writes. "About 300 landowners have objected, he says; 52 changed their minds after getting a follow-up call; and the pipeline company has so far filed 58 lawsuits. There is a state law about surveying private property, the spokesman says, and 'as long as we follow the statute, by law we don’t have to ask for permission.' He’s also aware of at least two lawsuits that landowners have filed, alleging that the state statute violates the U.S. Constitution."

And then there's the music of Robin and Linda Williams, who wrote the protest song, "We Don't Want Your Pipeline." The song goes:

We don’t want your pipeline, we don’t want your pipeline
We’ll take the sunshine, the water and wind!
We’re gonna put a stop sign on Dominion’s pipeline.
Go tell your neighbors! Go tell your friends!

They’ll bring cough and corruption like we’ve never seen,
Gouging our Forest, our mountains and our streams.
Five hundred miles long and fifty yards wide,
Blasting through our homes with their pipeline

Now sinkholes, explosions and gas-line leaks,
You hear it on the news almost every week.
Dominion says ‘Don’t worry,’ but it ain’t wise,
To be flirting with disaster with their pipeline

These Richmond operators don’t care ’bout you and me.
They just want to make a killing when they got more than they need.
And you can bet they’re safe in their houses so fine,
Far, far away from the pipeline.

Now these Big Boys say, ‘It’s a done deal.’
But nothing’s done as long as we’ll,
Stand together for our rights and our property,
And keep pushing back against their pipeline

County in Appalachian Virginia leading charge against proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Residents in rural Nelson County, Virginia, many of them farmers, have been leading the fight against Dominion Energy’s proposed 560-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline that would carry natural gas from Harrison County, West Virginia, to Robeson County, North Carolina, Brad Horn reports for The Washington Post. Of the 245 lawsuits Dominion has filed, or planned to file, to get survey access, half were in Nelson County. While 85 percent of landowners along the route have allowed surveys, that number drops to less than 40 percent in Nelson County.

"The pipeline’s champions say it will significantly reduce carbon emissions while creating jobs along its route. Detractors say the $5 billion project will lead to more methane emissions, violate private property rights and disrupt fragile ecosystems when it passes through some of the more intact wilderness of the southern Appalachians," Horn writes. "What isn’t argued is whether the U.S. needs a replacement for coal. Coal-fired power plants generate 33 percent of the nation’s electricity but 71 percent of our carbon emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This gives coal the distinction of being the nation’s single largest contributor to climate change." (Post graphic; click on it for a larger version)

Landowners "were told the pipeline required a permanent clearing, a 75-foot-wide 'right of way' on which nothing but small plants could grow," Horn writes. "According to Dominion’s literature, the right of way could still be used for most agricultural endeavors such as planting crops and grazing livestock, but landowners couldn’t grow trees or build houses on the land, and new road constuction would be limited... If the pipeline was approved, which was expected, Dominion could seize rights of way with eminent domain. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency responsible for approving interstate pipeline applications, could also reject the proposal, but even anti-pipeline activists considered this unlikely."

Heidi Cochran, a Nelson County landowner since 1977 who has fought the pipeline, said she knew "that if they succeeded in pushing the pipeline out of Nelson County, it would only mean it would be built in a different county and routed through different back yards," Horn writes. She told him, “It bothers me that I only cared about this when it was in my back yard, that I never got involved when it was happening to someone else,. It may be a done deal with me, but that’s who I’m doing this for now: for the next person who’s going to have a pipeline built in their back yard.” (Read more)

Appeals court denies rehearing for ruling that blocked Atlantic Coast Pipeline; foes say 'back to the drawing board'

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a major blow to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline on Monday when it refused to reconsider a ruling that threw out a permit for the pipeline to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail, Denise Lavoie reports for The Associated Press. The 605-mile pipeline would begin in West Virginia and run through North Carolina and Virginia.

In December a three-judge panel of the court said the U.S. Forest Service lacked authority to allow the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail and "also said the agency 'abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources' when it approved the pipeline crossing the George Washington and Monongahela National Forests, and a right-of-way across the Appalachian Trail," Lavoie reports.

Lead pipeline developer Dominion Energy and the Forest Service then requested a full-court rehearing, but the court has refused. The Southern Environmental Law Center and the Sierra Club, which filed the lawsuit, said in a statement that the ruling sends the pipeline "back to the drawing board," Lavoie reports.

Supreme Court hears arguments about pipeline; justices in majority seem sympathetic to energy companies

Atlantic Coast Pipeline proposed route (Associated Press map)

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday about whether a lower court was right to toss a key permit needed for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross under the Appalachian Trail. The court seems poised to rule for the natural-gas pipeline developers; most justices expressed skepticism about the lower court's ruling, Denise Lavoie reports for The Associated Press.

In 2018, the Richmond-based Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "found the U.S. Forest Service did not have the authority to grant a right-of-way to allow the pipeline to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail in the George Washington National Forest" on the Virginia-West Virginia border, Lavoie reports. "The Fourth Circuit found that the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act allows rights-of-way for pipelines on federal land, except for land in the National Park System." The court found that the trail is a unit of the system, so the service has no the authority to approve a right-of-way. Only Congress can approve such a crossing, the environmental groups argued.

But conservative justices in the Supreme Court's 5-4 majority were hesitant about upholding the appeals court's ruling, and "expressed concern that concluding that no federal agency can grant easements for pipeline projects on lands crossed by the trail within national forests could erect a roadblock to energy infrastructure projects," Lavoie reports.

Attorney Michael Kellogg, who represents the environmental groups, noted that 55 pipelines run under the Appalachian Trail, 19 of them laid on federal land before the Appalachian Trail was designated as a national scenic trail under the National Trails System Act in 1968, Lavoie reports.

"The narrow question before the Supreme Court is whether the Forest Service has the authority to grant rights-of-way through lands crossed by the Appalachian Trail within national forests," Lavoie reports. Lead pipeline developer Dominion Energy and the federal government "say the Trails System Act did not transfer lands crossed by the trail to the National Park Service. They argue that although the Park Service is charged with overall administration of the trail, the actual lands crossed by the trail within national forests remain under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service."

Supreme Court says Atlantic Coast Pipeline can cross under Appalachian Trail

In a 7-2 decision today, the Supreme Court ruled that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project can pass underneath the Appalachian Trail. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, Niina Farah reports for Energy & Environment News.

The decision overturns a 2018 Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the U.S. Forest Service did not have the authority to greenlight a key right-of-way permit for the pipeline, Farah reports. The Fourth Circuit ruled that the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act allows rights-of-way for pipelines on federal land, except for land in the National Park Service. Since the court found that the Appalachian Trail is a part of the system, only Congress could approve such a crossing.

Pipeline developers, led by Dominion Energy Inc., argued that upholding the decision would essentially block natural gas development on the East Coast, Farah reports. Environmental groups argued that since the NPS is responsible for administering the Appalachian Trail, it also has jurisdiction over pipeline construction on federal lands under the trail. So new pipeline construction cannot be allowed, the environmental groups argued, since the NPS has higher conservation standards than the Forest Service.

"During oral arguments, the justices questioned whether they could come to a narrow decision that drew a distinction between a surface trail administered by NPS and subsurface land controlled by the Forest Service," Farah reports. "In the majority decision the justices found that the Interior Department held a limited easement for establishing and administering the Appalachian Trail but that the land itself remained 'federal lands' under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service."

Atlantic Coast Pipeline canceled; regulatory doubts cited

Light green area is the George Washington National Forest. (Bloomberg map)

Dominion Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp. said Sunday that they are canceling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, due to delays and concerns over the project's viability.

The companies "spent years fighting regulatory battles that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled favorably for the companies last month," allowing the line to cross the Appalachian Trail, The Washington Post notes. But the firms "said in a statement that other recent federal court rulings have heightened the litigation risk, extended the project’s timeline and further ballooned the cost of the project, which already risen from an estimated $5 billion in 2014 to $8 billion today."

"They cited a Montana court ruling last month that threw another roadblock in the path of the Keystone XL Pipeline as an example of the continued challenges such projects face," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Utilities and pipeline companies have been trying to expand U.S. pipeline networks for more than a decade to take advantage of the bounty of oil and gas unlocked by the fracking boom. But many of the projects have encountered intense opposition from landowners, Native American groups and environmental activists concerned about climate change who want to keep fossil fuels in the ground."

The pipeline would have delivered gas to the Virginia coast for compression and export.

Amendment would give National Park Service clear authority to allow natural-gas pipeline construction

"Legislation is pending in Congress that would give the National Park Service clear authority to allow construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline beneath the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway, both potentially critical obstacles under litigation pending in the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals," Michael Martz reports for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The Fourth Circuit has proved a formidable stumbling block for the 600-mile natural-gas pipeline: it halted construction in early August after throwing out two necessary permits, arguing that one permit violated the agency's mandate to preserve the environment, and another permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not adequately assess the project's impact on threatened and endangered species. The court also stayed the permit the U.S. Forest Service issued for the pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail on land in the George Washington National Forest. 

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission allowed construction to resume in September after its builders, led by Dominion Energy, reissued the revised permits on the $7 billion project.

The measure has been proposed as an amendment to the end-of-year omnibus spending bill, and its chances are shaky; Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., opposes it. "The legal battle carries high stakes for the pipeline, which must cross the parkway and national scenic trail on its path from gas-producing shale fields in West Virginia through the heart of Virginia to the Atlantic Coast and eastern North Carolina," Martz reports.

Work suspended on Mountain Valley Pipeline

Roanoke Times map

"Developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline have voluntarily suspended work on parts of the embattled project, three days after a lawsuit raised questions about its impact on endangered species," Laurence Hammack reports for The Roanoke Times. "In a letter Thursday to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Mountain Valley said the suspension covers 'new activities' that could pose a threat to the lives of endangered bats and fish, or potentially destroy their habitat."

On Monday, a group of environmental organizations petitioned the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate a 2017 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opinion that the pipeline would not significantly harm endangered species along the pipeline's route. "The 4th Circuit has already thrown out a similar permit issued for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, ruling that the federal agency had apparently 'lost sight of its mandate,'" Hammack reports.

Mountain Valley spokesperson Natalie Cox said construction will continue on other areas along the pipeline where no impact on endangered species is anticipated. About 238 of the pipeline's 303 miles have already been constructed. Cox said the move would not have any "material impact" on the number of workers employed and won't delay the expected mid-2020 completion date, Hammack reports.

"Most work will be halted on a 75-mile stretch, along watersheds in the counties of Giles, Craig, Montgomery, Roanoke, Franklin, and Pittsylvania. Another 20 miles, including some streams and rivers in West Virginia, are also included," Hammack reports. "Mountain Valley also said it would cease tree-felling in areas populated by endangered bats. But with the exception of a wooded slope in Montgomery County — where two tree-sitters have been blocking work on the pipeline since last September — nearly all of the trees the company had planned to cut are already gone."

This is far from the first delay for the pipeline on environmental grounds. Mountain Valley halted the project in Virginia for a while last summer because muddy runoff from construction caused erosion problems along a two-mile stretch. Then in August 2018 construction halted for a month after a federal appeals court vacated a permit to cross the Jefferson National Forest. In December. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring filed suit against the pipeline's builders, saying they had violated environmental regulations more than 300 times. "The company is still trying to regain two sets of key permits it lost to legal challenges last year, one for the pipeline to cross through the national forest and another for it to cross more than 1,000 streams and wetlands," Hammack reports.

Pipeline projects draw fire in several states

While the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline through the Great Plains has grabbed most of the headlines and remains on hold while President Obama ponders a decision on it, several other pipeline projects are garnering local and national attention as opposition to them continues to grow and questions are raised about the need for them all. Most would re-purpose existing lines that carry natural gas from the Gulf Coast into lines that would supply Gulf refineries with natural-gas liquids condensed from the nation's newly largest gas field, the Marcellus Shale in Northern Appalachia.

One is the Bluegrass Pipeline, which would extend from Pennsylvania to Louisiana and carry 200,000 barrels of natural-gas liquids per day to Louisiana refineries, is causing growing concern in Kentucky. In an editorial, the Kentucky Standard in Bardstown, 40 miles south of Louisville, said in an editorial, "After much consideration, it is this board’s view that the risks, coupled with the safety history of one of the partners in the venture, outweigh any of the minimal benefits to our area’s citizens. Among the many concerns voiced by opponents, safety and landowners’ property rights seem to be the most concerning." (Read more) (Map by Williams Cos., a partner in the project)

The biggest question is whether the pipeline company has the right to condemn private property to get the route it wants. It says it does, but its foes disagree. The News-Enterprise, in Elizabethtown, 26 miles west of Bardstown, opined, "Kentucky laws regarding eminent domain allow some property to be seized through a court process if intended for the greater good of society. While it is unclear if a private company can assert that claim successfully under Kentucky law, it is clear that county government has no impact on this matter of interstate commerce and that state government seems unlikely to take it up any time soon. To summarize, the rules are unclear, the government oversight is spotty and the appeal process is non-existent." (Read more) Gov. Steve Beshear declined to put the question on the agenda of the legislature's current special session on redistricting, saying there was no rush to deal with the issue. His son Andy is a lawyer for one of the pipeline partners.

Other proposed pipelines include the Energy East Pipeline, which would convert 1,864 miles of an existing, 55-year-old pipeline currently used for natural gas to carry about 900,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Alberta to the Atlantic seaboard, and the Eastern Gulf Crude Access Pipeline, a 774-mile project that would carry 880,000 barrels of crude per day from Illinois to Louisiana, Kiley Kroh reports for Climate Progress. (Read more) (Graphic by Paul Horn, InsideClimate News)

Those aren't the only pipelines garnering attention. "Last week, a joint venture between two companies jumped into the pipeline scramble," James Bruggers reports for The Courier-Journal of Louisville. There has been a proposal from Kinder Morgan/MarkWest Utica EMG to convert "its existing pipeline to a natural gas liquids line between northwest Louisiana and the Northeast through Kentucky," and "Enterprise Products Partners, has already begun constructing the ATEX Express Pipeline, a natural gas liquids pipeline that will run 369 miles from Washington County, Pa., to Seymour, Ind." If those two pipelines, along with the Bluegrass Pipeline, are completed, "they could move almost 600,000 barrels a day from Ohio and Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast. . . . It’s not clear now if there will be enough customers to buy it all, experts said." (Read more)

Pipeline-protesting tree-sitters come down, hit the road

Theresa Minor Terry (L) and Theresa "Red" Terry (R) spoke at a
Charlottesville protest. (Daily Progress photo by Zack Wajsgras)

A mother and daughter who camped in trees to block a natural-gas pipeline on their family's Virginia property came down Saturday after a federal judge threatened heavy fines, Gregory Schneider reports for The Washington Post.

Late Friday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon found Theresa "Red" Terry, 61, and her daughter, Theresa Minor Terry, 30, in contempt of a court order that granted the builders of the Mountain Valley Pipeline entry to their land. If they didn't come down by midnight, Dillon ruled, they would be fined $1,000 a day and arrested by federal marshals.

"After the ruling, Coles Terry [Red's husband] said the women would come down. Even if they didn’t mind paying the fines, he said, the judge had directed that the money go to the pipeline builders — a notion that disturbed the Terrys," Schneider reports.

The women came down from the trees shortly after 4 p.m. Friday, but have not given up their protest: both are now leading public protests in the area to demand action from Gov. Ralph Northam and urge the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to report unfavorably on the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines' effect on streams and waterways, Tyler Hammel reports for The Daily Progress in Charlottesville.

At a rally in Charlottesville on Monday, Red Terry was blunt about what she told Northam she wanted: "I told him that I had to grow a set, and it's damn time he did too," she said. "I really think the governor should stop bending over for Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast and stand with the people." The Terrys have planned several other protests around the state.

Permits approved for two controversial pipelines

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted important permits for two controversial gas pipelines on Oct. 13. Getting a "Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity" means, effectively, that both pipelines can now claim private land for easements through eminent domain.

For the $3.7 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline, "securing FERC’s blessing moved the venture a giant step forward toward launching construction of the 42-inch diameter, 303-mile buried pipeline. The project would transport about 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas that has been extracted by fracking in the Appalachian Basin," Duncan Adams reports for The Roanoke Times.

Some private land owners were upset about the MVP. The late Clarence Givens of Giles County, Virginia, was so upset about it that he talked about halting pipeline construction in his obituary.

Other stakeholders support the pipeline, saying it's an important step in growing the region's economy.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which secured the same type of permit on Oct. 13, would run 600 miles from West Virginia through eight counties of rural North Carolina, Lauren Ohnesorge reports for the Triangle Business Journal. 

Baptist preacher, Buddhist swami team up to fight pipeline

Natural-gas pipelines are lightning rods for controversy, drawing protests from environmentalists, musicians, disgruntled land owners, and even nuns. They have made for some strange-at-first-glance bedfellows too: Two longtime friends, a Southern Baptist preacher and a Buddhist swami, joined together to fight a proposed compressor station in rural Virginia for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

The compressor station is slated to be built just down the road from one of the two Baptist churches where the Rev. Paul Wilson preaches in Union Hill, a rural community founded by freed slaves. Dominion Energy says the station will generate as much as $1 million a year in tax revenue for the low-income county. Though state regulators say Dominion has promised to take great pains to make the station safe, "federal documents say such stations — which keep the gas flowing — emit toxic chemicals that can harm health. They can be noisy, and they light up at night. Once in a great while, such facilities explode — causing damages and fatalities for a significant distance all around," Gregory Schneider reports for The Washington Post.

Wilson's friend, Swami Dayananda, was also concerned. The pipeline would go under the James River next to the yoga shrine and retreat where she has worked for more than 30 years. Both feel that Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has failed to adequately oppose the project despite proclaiming himself an environmentalist. Dayananda and Wilson have led local resistance to the pipeline and hope to convince the Virginia State Air Control Board to deny a necessary permit next month.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's impact report says "compressor station emissions could include carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and volatile organic compounds, and it notes that African American populations are more susceptible to related asthma. But it concludes that Union Hill is not populous enough to be of concern," Schneider reports.

Dominion Energy says it has appointed a community liaison to make sure the town's concerns are heard: Basil Gooden, a Union Hill native who served as state agriculture secretary under former governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat.

Judges say new pipeline can't cross Blue Ridge Parkway

"A federal appeals court on Monday revoked the right-of-way that the National Park Service had granted the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross underneath the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia," Craig Jarvis reports for The Herald Sun in Durham, N.C. "The decision by the three-judge panel will cause some delay for the project, which has already begun construction in North Carolina and West Virginia but not Virginia."

The plaintiffs, The Sierra Club and the Virginia Wilderness Committee, argued that the NPS didn't have the right to grant the right-of-way for the natural gas pipeline because it violated the agency's mandate to conserve the environment. "It remains to be seen how much of a delay the ruling will cause," Jarvis writes.

"Chief Judge Roger Gregory, in a footnote to his written opinion, scolded the park service, calling its issuance of a permit 'arbitrary and capricious' for invoking laws that weren’t applicable, and for not explaining how approval was consistent with its mission," Jarvis reports. Gregory wrote in the opinion that Duke Energy and its partners must have a valid permit from the park service to continue construction, and to do so without it would violate previous authorization from the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission.

The ruling comes days after the same three judges of the Fourth Circuit Court rescinded permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, saying that the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management hadn't fully vetted the project for its environmental impact.

Rise of oil and gas pipelines lead Pennsylvania landowners to face eminent domain battles

West Chester, Pa. (Best Places map)

Trump supporters in rural areas where pipelines are proposed say they are being bullied by oil and natural gas companies to force them off their property, Stuart Leavenworth reports for McClatchy Newspapers. Homeowners like Norm MacQueen, a West Chester, Pa. resident who voted for Trump, are in the midst of eminent domain battles in which they say "agents pressure them to sign easement agreements and then threaten court action if they don’t agree to the offered terms."

Trump, who has publicly supported eminent domain, won the presidential election largely by taking swing states like Pennsylvania, where he "wooed rural voters by pledging to be attentive to their concerns," Leavenworth writes. "But one of his first acts as president was to expedite the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, both of which have employed eminent domain to secure needed land." (Proposed Sunoco Pipeline; BizPhilly map, click on it for a larger view.)

"The White House is squarely on the side of pipelines," Leavenworth notes. "For the last three months, Trump’s aides have been reviewing proposals to help expedite various infrastructure projects nationwide. Unions and industry groups have provided the White House with their favored proposals, which include pipeline projects in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and other states, according to documents obtained by McClatchy."

"Tens of thousands of landowners could soon find themselves in the paths of new pipelines," Leavenworth writes. "As of 2016, more than 34,000 miles of new oil and gas pipelines were in the planning stages, according to Pipeline and Gas Journal, an industry trade publication. Many are being spurred by the rich deposits of gas in the Marcellus shale region of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio."

"Lawmakers in some states are pushing back," Leavenworth reports. "Georgia and South Carolina recently passed laws banning private companies from using eminent domain for oil pipelines. Eminent domain has become an issue in the Virginia governor’s race, where the five leading candidates are split over the $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a joint venture of Dominion Resources and Duke Energy that would ship natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina. Two of the candidates—one Democrat and one Republican—have come out against the use of eminent domain for the project."

Nonprofit journalism in rural areas needs 'ignition' that helps citizens understand that they can raise philanthropic support

Newsrack in Monterey, Va. (PBS)

By Al Cross, director emeritus

Institute for Rural Journalism, University of Kentucky

Judy Woodruff of PBS continued her reports about journalism and democracy on "NewsHour" tonight with a story about a rural Virginia editor-publisher who charges $5 a copy for her weekly paper, and a look at the prospects of journalism being funded by philanthropy as well as advertising and the audience.

"While that nonprofit model is showing promise in urban settings, economic realities persist for small, local newspapers that still depend on subscriptions and advertising," Woodruff reports, referring to The Recorder, a weekly that covers three counties in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia and was the first newspaper to report plans for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a project abandoned in the face of public opposition (and the first to report its demise, she says). Editor-Publisher Anne Adams raised her single-copy price to $5 in 2017, and when the pandemic hit in 2020, her readers helped her stay afloat with donations.

But few rural newspapers are asking for donations or charging that high a price for single copies, which would seem to require a certain level of quality that is harder to achieve when profit margins have become thin. "There just isn't sufficient subscriber revenue to pay the bills, and of course, there's not sufficient philanthropic dollars to lift them up over the profit margin," newspaper researcher Penny Abernathy of Northwestern University told Woodruff.

It may take a different way of thinking. Sarabeth Berman, head of the American Journalism Project, which is supporting 41 newsrooms, including Mississippi Today, the Pulitzer Prize winner that was also featured in Woodruff's report, said "These organizations are really thinking of their financial structure in the same way we think of other organizations that are really essential to our communities, like libraries and museums and other institutions that stitch us together."

That's harder in rural areas. Abernathy said, "These smaller communities are kind of at a loss as how you go about getting that initial ignition that brings people together and helps 'em understand that they can do this, they can raise that money to support local news operations." 

She said, "Increasingly I'm worried that we're evolving into a nation of journalistic haves and have-nots. That has huge implications for not only our democracy but for our society: How do we come together around a common set of facts to solve the issues that are confronting us in the 21st century?"

An earlier report in Woodruff's series focused on another great rural editor-publisher, Laurie Ezzell Brown of The Canadian Record of Texas, which now exists only on Facebook after it stopped printing in March.

Administration lists top 50 infrastructure projects, many for rural areas, but McConnell is skeptical

One of Trump's top infrastructure projects calls
for repairs of Interstate 95 through North Carolina

The Trump administration recently released a priority list of 50 infrastructure projects, including several that would benefit rural areas, report Lynn Horsley, Steve Vockrodt, Walker Orenstein and Linsday Wise of McClatchy Newspapers: "The preliminary list offers a first glimpse at which projects around the country might get funding if Trump follows through on his campaign promise to renew America’s crumbling highways, airports, dams and bridges."

The No. 1 project is the Gateway Program, which would be a $12 billion reconstruction of high-risk Northeast Corridor rail infrastructure between Newark, N.J. and New York City. Second on the list is the Brent Spence Bridge, a $2.5 billion project to fix the nation's 15th worst bridge on I-75 between Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati. Next is $2 billion to construct the National Research Lab for Infrastructure in Columbus, Ohio, $3 billion to complete the Olmsted Locks and Dam on the Ohio River near the Mississippi to aid barge traffic on the rivers, and $1.5 billion for critical highways repairs on I-95 in North Carolina.

Rounding out the top 10 are $8 billion for bridge repairs on I-95 in Philadelphia, $1 billion for Mississippi River shipping channel dredging in South Louisiana, $10 billion for the NextGen air traffic control system to replace outdated equipment, $2.5 billion for a 720-mile transmission line to move clean, wind power energy from the Oklahoma Panhandle to Memphis, and $3 billion for seven new water tunnels in Cleveland to reduce contaminated water in Lake Erie.

Other projects that could benefit rural areas: $850 million to repair South Carolina dams; $250 million for water recovery in Cadiz, Calif; $3 billion for the TransWest Express Transmission Project to deliver cost-effect renewable energy in Wyoming to desert regions in Arizona, California and Nevada; $5 billion for a wind energy project in Wyoming; $4.5-5 million for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline; $600 million to find new, sustainable water sources in New Mexico; $800 million to widen I-93 in Massachusetts and New Hampshire; $800 million for reconstruction of I-395/I-95; $1 billion to improve the I-70 Mountain Corridor in Colorado; and $1 billion to improve I-25 in Colorado.

But the prospects of a big infrastructure package getting through Congress aren't good, judging from comments Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made in an interview last week with Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and publisher of The Rural Blog.

"We’re not interested in going out and borrowing money and plussing up a bunch of federal accounts," McConnell said. "A credible infrastructure bill has to be paid for, and the two ways to pay for it are both challenging politically. The Democrats don’t like public-private partnerships, which invariably means tolling. Everybody’s queasy about a gas-tax increase because of the way lower middle-class people have fallen behind over the last eight years. . . . Everybody loves roads, everybody loves buildings, but it’s going to have to be credibly paid for to be passed by this Congress."

Asked if he wanted want no sort of federal appropriations that would add to the deficit to build infrastructure, McConnell replied, "No. We need to pay for it. We’ve got a $21 trillion debt." Told that some research has shown better infrastructure improves economic productivity, he replied, "You can argue that, but we’ve got a $21 trillion debt, and about half of it we’ve accumulated in eight years, and I think we have a dangerous level of debt to GDP [gross domestic product] and I don’t think this particular Congress is going to be interested in making it worse."

Public-private partnerships are less feasible in rural areas because investors need high volume to pay tolls or other fees to recoup their investment, Ashley Halsey reported for The Washington Post last month.