PG&E received a maximum sentence for the 2010 San Bruno natural gas pipeline explosion. Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
A striking report has revealed that 90 percent of the 137 interstate
pipeline fires or explosions since 2010 have drawn no financial penalties for the companies responsible.
The article from
E&E News reporter Mike Soraghan underscores the federal Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's (PHMSA) weak authority over the fossil fuel industry for these disasters.
Communities along the 300-mile proposed route for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) heard some good news this week. On Tuesday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously voted to vacate a permit required by the Clean Water Act, which was previously issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The ruling stated the Army Corps lacked the authority to substitute one type of construction for another for the natural gas pipeline, which would crisscross rivers and other sensitive aquatic ecosystems hundreds of times between northern West Virginia and southern Virginia.
As Hurricane Florence churns menacingly toward the Mid-Atlantic coast, residents of South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia hold their breath, wondering where the massive storm surge, howling winds and torrents of rain will hit hardest.
Signs put up as part of a protest against the Mountain Valley Pipeline near Bent Mountain, Virginia. Michael S. Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty Images
On Friday, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ordered work stopped on the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline that would carry fracked natural gas along a 303-mile route from West Virginia to Virginia, Reuters reported.
The Greenbrier River in West Virgina is one of the waterways protected by a court order halting work on some parts of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Tim Kiser / GNU Free Documentation License
In a reprieve for the waterways of West Virginia and the communities that depend on them, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said in a document on Monday that EQT Midstream Partners would halt work on the parts of its controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that cross 591 streams and wetlands in the state, Reuters reported.
A mudslide closed Cahas Mountain Road in Franklin County on May 18. Emily Beckner Guilliams / Preserve Montgomery County VA / Facebook
The fight against the Mountain Valley Pipeline has gone from the trees to the courts, as six landowners filed suit against the pipeline in federal court Tuesday, claiming a mudslide near one of its construction sites damaged their property, WSLS 10 reported.
The suit comes a week after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pulled the project's permit to empty dredged material into West Virginia rivers while it evaluates if the project violates West Virginia's environmental rules, potentially delaying the pipeline, Reuters reported.
Fern MacDougal's stand on Pocahontas Road. Appalachians Against Pipelines
Resistance is growing against the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) designed to carry fracked gas 300 miles from northwest West Virginia to southern Virginia.
On Monday morning, a woman named Fern MacDougal strung up a platform 30 feet in the air that is suspended by ropes tied to surrounding trees in Virginia's Jefferson National Forest.
In Virginia and West Virginia, residents and activists are battling natural gas companies over a natural gas pipeline currently being constructed.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline will extend 303 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, with a recently proposed 70 mile extension into North Carolina. The project is being funded and operated by Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, owned by EQT Midstream Partners, LP; NextEra US Gas Assets, LLC; Con Edison Transmission, Inc.; WGL Midstream; and RGC Midstream, LLC.
A simulated view of the Mountain Valley Pipeline from Giles High School in Pearisburg, Virginia. Hill Studio for Roanoke Valley Cool Cities Coalition
Federal regulators approved plans for two controversial new natural gas pipelines along the East Coast Friday.
In a divided 2-1 vote, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave the green light to the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipeline projects, which would carry shale gas through Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur, the only dissenting vote, expressed concerns in her written dissent on the redundancy of the collective 900 miles of pipeline, the potential environmental impacts and the relatively small accounted demand for the Mountain Valley project.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released its Final Environmental Impact Statement Friday for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a controversial 303-mile pipeline that would carry two billion cubic feet of fracked gas per day from West Virginia through Virginia.
Now that Donald Trump has official announced that he plans to pull out of the Paris climate agreement and further entrench the power of the fossil fuel industry within our federal government, state and local action on climate becomes ever more crucial.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently said as much in announcing executive action to draw up a state cap-and-trade system to limit carbon pollution from power plants.
