Atlantic Coast Pipeline & Mountain Valley Pipeline
Environmental Justice Human Rights Rights of Nature
Atlantic Coast Pipeline Map of Injustice
Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Mountain Valley Pipeline
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“No census tracts within 1 mile of ACP have a minority population greater than 50 percent.” (FERC FEIS Appendix U4-512)
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The Atlantic Coast Pipeline includes 3 huge, state Compressor Stations (CS) 200+ miles apart. Terminus & Link: all Compressor Station locations are Environmental Justice Communities on the basis of low-income.
Dom.com map. Data added by Lakshmi Fjord
The Pipelines
Who pays the true costs of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline? Environmental Justice communities all along the route: Appalachians, African Americans, Native Americans, and Rural people - all majority low-income
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) are interstate fracked gas transmission compressor stations and pipelines from drill sites in West Virginia's Marcellus Shale deposits with endpoints primarily at port facilities for sales to higher priced overseas markets.
There is no US utility need for MVP and ACP
No need for ACP and MVP stated by FERC Commissioner LaFleur in rare 2:1 dissent:
The Impacts
Under decimation of the EPA, long fought-for protections of endangered species, steep slopes, and vistas in our National Parks and National Forests where ACP and MVP plan to remove mountain tops on their routes are in question. The federal 4th District Court has two key legal cases before them regarding the Fish and Wildlife and Forest Service permits needed for ACP to cross shared national treasures.
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U.S. residents will pay all costs of the ACP and MVP, including the health costs of fracked gas. Every phase of the fracking-to-market process releases toxic chemicals through air emissions, contaminated water, leaks, blowdowns, ruptures, and explosions that lead to death, asthma and other chronic lung and respiratory conditions, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, disruptions of endocrine system, cognitive and neurological issues in children and the elderly, and many forms of cancer.
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Compressor stations for ACP are far larger than industry standard, yet even very small compressor stations have similarly devastating health risks as fracking well sites.
Disproportionately Impacted Communities
The Union Hill, VA and North-ampton, NC compressor stations will be built in 83% minority and 79.2% African American comm-unities. The Atlantic Connector Link is in 3 African American neighborhoods next to schools, hospitals, churches. All 3 sites are disproportionately low-income.
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Rural People
Native Americans
African Americans
Appalachians
The Northampton Compressor Station would be built on ancestral lands of the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe. In Prospect, NC, 30,000 Native Americans live within 1 mile of proposed route. NC most impacted population is 13% Native American (Statewide population: 1.2%)
The value of land in the rural area surrounding Union Hill has already fallen after ACP's decision to site compressor station 2 there. Residents are worried about the health impacts and potential contamination of their drinking water sourced from individual wells.
Appalachian residents, especially in West Virginia, have had their land infiltrated by natural gas companies because while they own the land, they don't own the resources underneath. Landslides in terrain similar to the Appalachians have caused pipeline explosions soon after installation
Archives of Testimonies of 2 People's Tribunals
On October 28, 2017, a day-long tribunal was held to collect testimonies about the human and environmental impacts of two interstate fracked gas pipeline projects already under construction through parts of Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina. The Tribunal brought together for the first time impacted people along the ACP and MVP to share first person and expert testimonies about eminent domain seizures of their land for interstate pipelines for which there is no need, as existing pipelines have enough capacity for the lifetime of the Marcellus Shale reserves. Yet, the MVP has already devastated waterways along its entire route. Both place a disproportionate burden of harms to water, air, and soil on rural, poor, African American, Native American, and Appalachian communities.
Please explore this website for videos, written testimonies, resources, and information about how to help resist the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), as well as information about the ongoing Permanent People’s Tribunal on Human Rights, Fracking, and Climate Change, and their event May 14-18, 2018.
Pipelines Compliance Surveillance
Atlantic Coast Piple Compliance Surveillance Initiative
Mountain Valley Watch
Latest Events
Under questioning by 4th Circuit at pipeline hearing, state concedes Union Hill's racial status
At compressor station hearing, sharp questions on environmental justice
Appeals court hears dispute over pipeline compressor station
Inside the Supreme Court showdown over Atlantic Coast
BREAKING: Federal Agency Asks Fish and Wildlife Service to Start Over on Crucial Permit for Mountain Valley Pipeline
Rural Virginia activist, 75, vows to ‘keep on fighting’ Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Union Hill Solar Project Aims to Reunite Community with Solar
Will they be built? Virginia’s contentious pipeline projects face major legal hurdles
Ralph Northam Says He’s Committed to Racial Equity. So Why is He Ignoring Union Hill?
William Limpert: Pipelines put health and environment at risk - and we don't need them anyway
Appeals court allows quick-take of land for Mountain Valley Pipeline
Rights of Nature: ACP & MVP
Breathing while black: A Dominion compressor station would disadvantage a historically black community in Virginia
Stand with Union Hill: Our Air Our Lives
Former VA Air Board Member speaks out on EJ and climate change issues of ACP: Bad News for Environmental Justice in Virginia
Gov. dissolves ACEJ, Reconstitutes with Council on Environmental Justice
Roanoke Attorneys Seek Criminal Investigation of Mountain Valley Pipeline Illegal Construction Activities
The U.S. is Helping the Natural Gas Industry Make a Profit — At The Expense of the Environment:
Northam Removes 2 Members From Air Board Before Buckingham Project Vote
Why No Lawmakers Have Stopped This Power Company’s Threat To Humanity
Judge Dismisses Charges Against Roanoke County Women who Sat in Trees to Block MVP
Robie Goins, Lumbee Indian Tribe
Prospect, NC
ACP Terminus
Article: Baptists and Yogis Join to Fight a Pipeline
Dear All,
The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal has just released its Advisory Opinion, recommending a worldwide ban on hydraulic fracturing, the extreme oil and gas extraction technique known as ‘fracking.’ The materials, and infrastructure of fracking inherently and necessarily violate human rights, the court decided in a Special Session on Human Rights, Fracking and Climate Change. The rights violated include the rights to life, to water, to full information and participation, and especially the rights of indigenous people, women and children.
Governments have an affirmative obligation to protect the rights of their citizens, according to internationally recognized human-rights Covenants and Declarations. When governments fail to adequately regulate harmful oil and gas industry practices, they fail to meet their human rights obligations. And when governments fail to take measures to prevent the advance of climate change and its impacts on the rights to life, liberty, and security, they are failing to meet their internationally recognized human-rights obligations. Widespread government failures have created a global “axis of betrayal,” according to the international court, in which governments and fossil-fuel industries collude – at great cost to people and the planet – in human-rights violations to their mutual profit.
The Special Session was conducted for five days in May of 2018. Four Preliminary tribunals had been conducted in the months prior to the Plenary hearings. The Pre-tribunals included rich oral testimony from Australia, the US states of Ohio and Virginia, and other places, supporting documentation, and findings from those Pre-tribunal’s local judges. All materials and reports from those Pre-tribunal hearings, all the Plenary session’s oral testimony and arguments, all Plenary session reports, amicus curiae briefsand full documentation are available, in both video and text formats, on the website for the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal Session on Human Rights, Fracking and Climate Change .
The full text of the Opinion is attached. It is also available on the website for the PPT Session on Human Rights, Fracking and Climate Change and on the Jurisprudence page of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal website at their headquarters in Rome.
Tom Kerns
for the PPT Steering Group
News Feed
Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Review
Hearing 2019-012: Poverty in America: Economic Realities of Struggling Families
Poor People's Campaign Moral Budget
Rights of Nature
Buckingham We The People Mission Statement:
We are committed to preserving a sustainable environment through defending our right to clean air, water,and land. We recognize our dependence on nature and respect our need to live in harmony with the natural world.
James River Natural Community Bill of Rights:
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Buckingham We the People Facebook page:
United States Spends Ten Times More On Fossil Fuel Subsidies Than Education
Former National Park Director Objects to Dominion Plan to Change Laws about Appalachian Trail Crossing
Fracked Gas and Environmental Health Impacts
84% of fracking studies show the industry harms human health
Fracked Gas and Economic Impacts
Renewable Energy Is Now The Cheapest Option - Even Without Subsidies
Message from Lakshmi Fjord, editor
Please excuse our Under Renovation website! With the help of a donation from Oil Change International for skilled website support, this website is shifting to a resource for updated ACP & MVP environmental justice, human rights, and rights of nature resources. WE NEED YOUR HELP to fill in details for each site along ACP and MVP. Please contact the email below or contact Lakshmi directly.
This already is the place to find MVP & ACP impacted peoples' testimonies, written transcripts, videos, power-points from the Cvlle People's Tribunal on ACP & MVP, Oct. 28, 2017, and the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Fracking on May 14, 2018. Resources will include site information, history, demographics, on places along both MVP & ACP routes, including Union Hill, Buckingham, VA; resources on fracked gas infrastructure, no need for either ACP or MVP economic and market info, and links to our allied groups on both pipelines; updated photos & maps.
Thanks for your patience.