To the editor:

Dominion Power has proposed a new natural gas pipeline through West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. If installed, the pipeline will contribute to worsening climate change through increased carbon dioxide emissions from fracking and the burning of natural gas.

The pipeline and the fracking it encourages will cause immediate environmental damage. It will encroach on our private property, and it will be a safety hazard. It may provide short-term profits for Dominion Power, but it will hurt all of us in the long run. The pipeline should be stopped.

Climate change has begun, and it could become catastrophic in the future. Dominion Power needs to stop poisoning our atmosphere with ever-increasing amounts of carbon dioxide.

Fracking is detrimental to our environment and public heath. Despite well-funded propaganda from the oil and gas industry, fracking has polluted our wells, caused local air pollution, and caused earthquakes.

Dominion Power has the power of eminent domain. That means they can put the pipeline through your property by digging up your ground, cutting down your trees, digging through your streams, and leaving a permanent scar on your property. They can do the same through our public lands, towns, and neighborhoods.

Dominion Power has stated that the pipeline will benefit its customers. I question that. Dominion Power wants to build a gas liquefaction plant in Cove Point, Maryland, and a similar pipeline through Maryland in order to pipe fracked gas for shipment to India and Japan. Why? So they can make a bigger profit.

That’s right — gas taken from America will not be available to Americans, and will only be sold overseas. Dominion Power’s proposed pipeline through Virginia has a branch going to the port of Norfolk. I suspect that the master plan is to ship gas from the new pipeline overseas, and to deny it to us here at home.

Our constitution begins with “We the People”, not “We the corporations.” We the People have the power to stop this detrimental, self-serving project, despite the millions of dollars Dominion Power has given to our elected officials through the years.

Please tell your elected officials that we don’t want this pipeline.

 

Bill Limpert

Warm Springs