The disregard for Appalachia is represented in your pictures - they are 
from the Rockies!

Obviously, there is nothing here but a pile of dirt and a few 
uncivilized, half clothed natives.  We have had long experience with 
extractive industry - which continues to this day.  They come in and 
burn brightly for a few decades at most, and leave behind rusted out 
installations, transportation lines that erode and damage water sources, 
mangled forests.  They have a legacy of poisoned people, both workers 
and just residents.  It is never cleaned up.  The government is expected 
to clean up railroad lines, pipe yards, and all the rest.  But it 
doesn't get done.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of old 
shallow wells, hundreds of mine waste piles, hundreds of mines producing 
streams too polluted to support life.

You seem to be getting predictions of gas production from wild eyed 
optimists.  Industry guys who see only the front edge of production.  
The easy stuff is taken out first - always - and it gets less productive 
as time goes on.  Why don't you consider experts like Dr. Anthony 
Ingraffea, who take a more measured view? The fracking method only gets 
6% of the gas in place, and the difficulty of situating the horizontal 
drilling means a lot will not even get the 6% taken out.

Why don't you consider the past of extraction companies a guide to the 
future?  Better yet, I dare you to buy acreage in this new "fertile 
crescent" and see for yourself why the natives are restless.

Sincerely,
​S. Tom Bond, Jane Lew, WV
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https://news.littlesis.org/2017/05/08/former-obama-epa-official-now-lobbying-for-atlantic-coast-pipeline/
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 ​The comment period on the 42” Atlantic Coast Pipeline comes to a close this Thursday. Anyone who made comments during the pre-filing period MUST submit those comments again, since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has essentially tossed those into a pile of “old business.”  

If you are a landowner, you may have already commented. If you are not a landowner along the route, perhaps you are an abutter (one next to property on the pipeline). If you are neither of these things, perhaps you are still concerned about threats to water, safety, and public health, or future economic development. All of these are valid concerns. You should write to the FERC. 

Abutters will face most of the same risks as affected landowners, without the offers of money for the use of their property – water contamination, stream degradation, soil contamination, danger of fire or explosion, lowered property value among them. You have a right to have your concerns heard. 

Even those not directly abutting could be negatively affected. The incineration zone is 3600 feet from the pipeline center. Our high school sits within the incineration zone, as does our state police barracks.  

The evacuation zone a pipeline this size is 2 miles.  If you are wondering if your property is in the evacuation zone, you can consult the GIS layered maps at www.pipelineupdate.org. Does your community have an evacuation plan? If not, you might consider asking your county commission, local emergency planning commission, or office of emergency management to develop one. Better yet, consider joining one of these orgs, or even creating a planning commission in your community to address issues that are receiving short shrift. 

This project has many more costs than benefits, though you may have only heard about the benefits. Some of the drawbacks include millions in foregone economic development (who wants to start a small business in an incineration zone?), reduced property value (try selling your house when you tell prospective buyers they may be caught in a gas fire), and stream degradation (siltation during construction kills stream life). We have seen this happen with the Stonewall-Momentum gathering line.  
The 75-foot permanent easement will be sprayed with herbicides that will runoff into streams, and you can’t put anything but a flower garden on it. The 42” monstrosity will cross the Buckhannon River, our water source, and tributaries 9 times, and cross over miles of underground mines.  

The pipeline is buried only feet below the surface, but how far below our streams will it be built? This question has been posed to Dominion by city officials and has yet to be answered. Will it be deep enough to protect the stream bed from going under, or will it be deep enough to connect with underground mines? Either way, our drinking water source is at risk. 

What about jobs? Looking at the DEIS for this project (bear in mind this is info given to the FERC by Dominion) there could be 384 temporary jobs and only 22 permanent jobs. What is temporary? The Draft Environmental Impact Statement says the work tours will be 6-12 weeks long. Is it worth risking our water, safety, public health for a few temporary jobs? 

How many employees will be locally hired? Not many, if you consider what happened with the Stonewall Momentum gathering line. Very few will be from West Virginia; most of them will be from the south and west. Skilled workers are moved from site to site, not hired locally. 

Who will pay for the $5billion project? Why, the ratepayers, of course, in the form of higher energy rates. Will it provide gas to our area? Nope. All of it is being sent out of state and offshore, so the companies owning it can make money selling it on the world market (where the going rate is higher than domestic). When that happens, our energy prices will rise. 

What about tax revenue? Whatever money might come from this project will go to the state coffers, and they will dole it out as they please. Will it go for roads, schools, and other community projects? That is anyone’s guess, but the company has no stated plans to pay for roads or loss of life or property. The fact that they are a limited liability corporation means they won’t be liable for damages. 

Don’t take my word for it; have a look at the DEIS yourself: https://www.ferc.gov/industries/gas/enviro/eis/2016/12-30-16-DEIS.asp 

This project would have about 1,000 miles of access roads, effectively tripling its length. It will cross almost 2,000 waterways and affect the delicate Karst cavern and water filtration system. Moreover, we know that fracking is going to increase as soon as these projects get their certificate from the FERC. And we know what this means for our region: more water consumed, toxified, and injected, causing earthquakes, water and air contamination, and an exacerbated health crisis. 

New York and Maryland have banned fracking. Have they done this because they want to live in the dark ages again? No, it is because they have looked at the evidence and wish to protect their communities. Surely, they want to develop energy and create jobs, but in a healthy, ethical, and sustainable way. 

The only way to protect our water, safety, and public health and provide safe jobs is to invest in other types of energy - clean, green energy. Solar power provided more jobs in 2015 than coal, oil and gas combined. Companies like Coalfield Development Corporation are using federal dollars from programs like the Power Plus Plan to train former coalfield workers to do the new jobs that are part of a sustainable future: installing solar panels, sustainable construction, reclamation and remediation are just the tip of the iceberg. Talk about providing jobs – there it is! And guess what – we don’t have to live in the dark. 
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The deadline for comments is April 6 at 4:59p.m. Comments can be submitted on paper or electronically, at www.ferc.gov. Search for 556-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, click on the link for the DEIS, and choose the docket # for the project you wish to comment upon. Most people use the pipeline itself (CP15-554), but the 37-mile Supply Header Project in Marshall, Wetzel, and Doddridge is also part of the picture.

Unlike a wildfire or tornado, West Virginia is facing a disaster from which there is likely no recovery.
From judges that cancel a hearing and allow the waste to be put into our aquifers, to President Obama claiming natural gas is a “bridge to clean energy”, with almost unlimited funds, horizontal hydrofracturing (hhf or fracking) is being promoted, and its enormous damage hidden, in every imaginable way and at every government level.

Natural gas is not a bridge. Rather, it is reducing US support for clean energy technology, allowing other nations to control that growing market. Moreover, it is dirtier than coal because of the many leaks during production, its potency as a greenhouse gas and the tremendous amount of diesel fuel used.
Meanwhile, permitting frackers to dump hhf waste into drinking water is monstrous. These radioactive fluids contain heavy metals and endocrine disrupters that destroy immunity and impede body functions.
Clueless operators produce an average of five million gallons of this toxic waste every two to five years per well.  And West Virginia is the recipient of such material not only from the over 1,200 hhf wells here, but also from those in other states plus 53,000 vertically-fracked gas wells.

This flood of poison, having nowhere safe to go, is being dumped in West Virginia wherever possible. Calling it “deicer”, the WV Div. of Highways puts it on roads.  Truckers have been spotted pouring it into tributaries to rivers used for drinking water.  It is injected into abandoned coal mines which sometimes serve as reservoirs.  It is reported to be spread on mountaintop removal sites, and legally, is put into creeks.

Though extremely corrosive, frack waste is stored in dangerously under-regulated tanks whose whereabouts and contents are kept secret by the WV Health Dept. due to “terrorism”.  It is also left in “evaporation ponds” and is going into the water table from pits above perforated rock--and from more than seven hundred-fifty leaky, abandoned gas wells across the state.

Now it has been discovered that the drilling mud, thought to be benign, is also toxic; while frack-waste in tanks increases in radioactivity five-fold in fifteen days. When even some of this contamination reaches our water supplies, we will pay for it with our health.  And once poisoned, aquifers cannot affordably be restored.

Far from reigning in polluters, however, protective agencies are helping them.  The WV Dept. of Environmental Protection has adopted the EPA exemption of all gas and oil field wastes from hazardous classification.  Presently, by law, hhf waste cannot be tested for toxins or radioactivity and it is handled and stored as if it were only brine. The WV DEP has sponsored  state regulations shielding fracking from public scrutiny.  Moreover, this agency ignores flagrant gas industry violations, and recommends waste disposal options that by-pass safe drinking water requirements.  Fracking is also exempt from all major federal environmental laws.

Due to collaboration between industry and government, we are apparently now a sacrifice zone. In West Virginia, fracking is expected to expand exponentially when pipelines to export terminals are completed.
For documented verification, please go to www.mountainpartywv.com, “dumping facts”.  If you seek information elsewhere, please beware that academic studies, for example, reflect substantial natural gas grants and investments, that industry advertising is very profitable to the media and politicians receive large natural gas campaign contributions. Again, there is seemingly unlimited money backing hydrofracking.  But also please be aware that, together, informed citizens can correct situations.  Otherwise this dire issue would not be concealed.
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Barbara Daniels
Richwood, WV

Like the judge in Fayette County, who, without a hearing, nullified West Virginian's right to stop toxic dumping, in 2015,Governor Tomblin allowed construction to continue on a pipeline project when a cease and desist order should have been given.  The WV DEP issued a “consent order” for a company that had incurred 53 pipeline violations in only a few months.  In such an order, the offending party promises to correct the violations and pay a fine while the operation continues.
 
Autumn Bryson, an environmental consultant, documented these and many more violations in a fifteen-mile stretch of the 55 mile, 36-inch diameter, Stonewall “gathering” pipeline. This pipeline carries 700 million cubic feet of gas per day with shut-off valves every 25 miles.  Usually located in rural settings, gathering pipelines are nearly unregulated.

Natural gas is invisible, odorless, poisonous and highly explosive. In interstate pipelines, it is transported at an average pressure of 1,440 pounds per square inch which rises dramatically when the contents are forced up mountainsides. Explosions and asphyxiations do occur and with valves miles apart the resulting fires have lasted for up to a week. Gas pipelines are said to be monitored for leaks by aircraft once every few years, with dying vegetation the only indicator.
 
BTEX, a highly carcinogenic and neurotoxic fluid, can also be transported in such pipelines. Although this material has electronic leak detection, only leaks greater than 1.8 percent of the daily flow are spotted.  With an expected flow of 1.4BILLION cu/ft/day, this means that over 25 million cubic feet of poison will escape daily from every leak just under 1.8 percent of flow. BTEX transport does not require a FERC permit.
 
However, it is reported that 60 to 80 % of fracking hazards result from compressor stations located every 40 to 100 miles along the pipelines. These machines run constantly.  Some use diesel fuel which is known to cause asthma, lung cancer and heart problems. All emit carcinogenic, neurotoxic VOCs. formaldehyde and hydrogen sulfide.
 
Hydrogen sulfide, being heavier than air, accumulates in low areas. The EPA has reported that venting, leaks from well head equipment and compressors, spills, malfunctions or build-up in enclosed or low-lying areas can create lethal levels of this gas. 

Moreover, scientific research is increasingly revealing that exposure to long-term, low concentrations of hydrogen sulfide can also destroy health. The effects include damage to the cardiovascular, immune, digestive, respiratory and central nervous systems, as well as the ear/nose/throat complex and muscle, bone, skin, teeth, gums, urinary tract, blood and cancer. Yet, under pressure from the oil and gas companies, hydrogen sulfide has been exempted from the Clean Air Act.

Despite these hazards, if their lease offer is refused, for-profit gas companies claim they can take property by “eminent domain”.  This high handed approach has helped galvanize very diverse Appalachian groups into coalitions actively opposing pipelines.

One of these, POWHR (Protect Our Water Heritage and Rights), unites preservation groups through the Virginias and North Carolina along the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline route. By delaying construction with regulatory tactics, POWHR has bought time for conditions to change in their favor such as lowered gas prices. Kentucky's Friends for Environmental Justice is another rapidly-growing, successful coalition.  When faced with trouble, people in Appalachia do what they must.
 
Some say the solution is to ban fracking altogether as New York State, Vermont, Maryland, several Canadian provinces and ten nations have done.  But the NY ban did not include the entire fracking infrastructure and that state is now battling pipelines and toxic waste from elsewhere.
​
Barbara Daniels
Richwood, WV

So many people have found that if you sign a Right of Way for a pipeline, you lose your rights to that land forever, yet still pay the taxes on it each year.
Pipeline Right Of Ways – How to Prevent Losing Yours
Posted by Ron Hale on August 6, 2016 at 9:21pm in General Shale DiscussionsSend Message View Discussions
When that Oklahoma Pipeline company landman shows up and tells you he will pay you $10 per foot for the first two pipelines that are placed across your land, consider the following:
A Pipeline Row must have a survey attached to limit the pipeline company to the area you agreed upon for pipeline placement. If they don’t know where the pipeline will run but ask you to sign their one page Right Of Way contract, you are a target for having your ROW stolen. This has happened all over Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and will continue to happen as Oil & Gas moves West in Ohio and South in WV.
Also, never sign a ROW contract without Legal Representation reviewing the contract first.
If the landman says “ We don’t negotiate” he is doing a first through sweep to find out who is weak minded enough to sign his ROW contract.
Examples of Landowners who lost their ROWs:
One landowner that I know lost his Right Of Way, but doesn’t know it yet. He was told that the company needed a Road across his land, so they wrote a 2 Year Road ROW with the option to extend the ROW within that 2 years. A year later they extended the Road Row into “Perpetuity” and stated that all Rights of the Landowner were now the companies Rights. Those Rights include any Pipeline ROWs that are needed in the future.
An Elderly Farmer I met, was told in 2013 that he would be paid by this Oklahoma Pipeline Company for the first two pipelines placed across his land. The Landowner agreed which can be considered a Legal Verbal Contract in Ohio. The Elderly Farmer told me several times that he agreed to be paid for 2 pipelines, and asked me why he was only paid for the first pipeline and not the 2nd and a Fiber Optic Cable that was run across his land.
I looked at his written contract which stated he was paid per foot of Right Of Way. What these thieves did to this Elderly Ohio Farmer, was change the contract by putting a different written contract in front of him at the Bank where the Notary Witnessed the signature, after making a legal verbal contract for two pipeline payments. This is Theft by Deception in Ohio, a Criminal Matter.
Most states protect those over 65, Ohio also does, unless there is an Oil and Gas Related company or person doing the theft. The Farmer was in his 70s in 2013 at the time of the theft. The Jefferson County Protective Services Rep. told me this was a Civil Matter. I told him this is a Criminal Matter.
In both of these cases the landowners were never asked to sell their Right Of Ways, but both lost their Right Of Ways due to wording on the written contract. Does a bogus written contract always overwrite a Verbal Contract in Ohio? I’m betting it doesn’t.
Those of you who have lost your Right Of Way in a similar manner to this Oklahoma Pipeline Company, Let’s take back our Right of Ways In Ohio. Let's find a Lawyer who will take up this issue and let's put it in writing in a Class Action Complaint.
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