Tag Archives: Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Federal Judge OKs Pipeline Surveys

Posted on October 1, 2015 by | 13 comments

pipelineby James A. Bacon

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by landowners seeking to block the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) from surveying their land for the purpose of building a pipeline.

Three landowners in the path of the proposed 550-mile project had challenged the constitutionality of a state law permitting the pipeline to survey their lands, as long as it abode by certain formalities of notification. After filing the suite, ACP altered the proposed route to bypass the properties of the three plaintiffs.

“The court concludes that the plaintiffs’ facial challenges to the statute fail because the statute does not deprive a landowner of a constitutionally protected property right,” wrote Elizabeth K. Dillon, with the U.S. District Court in Roanoke. Additionally, Dillon ruled, the challenges fail because they are not “ripe,” that is, they are abstract and hypothetical now that ACP has announced that it no longer intends to survey their property. The plaintiffs “face no immediate threat of injury.”

The ruling removes another legal obstacle to surveying and ultimately constructing the pipeline, which its owners, including managing partner Dominion, say will help meet the growing demand for natural gas in Virginia and North Carolina as electric utilities substitute natural gas for coal. In theory the plaintiffs can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, although it is not clear if they intend to do so.

In an email response, Charlotte Rea, one of the plaintiffs and co-chair of the “All Pain No Gain” group opposing the pipeline, stated the following:

As you might expect, I am disappointed.  I don’t think our forefathers when they wrote the Constitution expected its interpretation to allow for private investor owned corporations to violate the property rights of private citizens.  The Constitution only allows for private property to be taken if it is for proven public need and just compensation is provided the landowner.  Surveys by private corporations on private property should not be allowed.  There has been no determination made that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project is for the public good.  Until that determination is made, private property owners should not have to cede any property rights.

In a press release, Dominion stated:

From the beginning, we have always believed that the Virginia law is consistent with the U.S. Constitution and allows surveys with proper notification and landowner protections. Yesterday’s ruling affirmed that belief and our actions.

ACP has followed the procedure as laid out in the Virginia law to survey the best route with the least environmental impact. The Virginia law allows survey only as necessary to meet regulatory requirements.

The plaintiff’s attorneys argued that the Takings clause of the Constitution protects property rights, specifically the right to exclude — to forbid others from trespassing. However, wrote Dillon, common law has long recognized that the right to exclude is not absolute. “Courts also have long recognized the common-law privilege to enter private property for survey purposes prior to exercising eminent domain authority.”

Consistent with the common law, Virginia has long permitted governmental entities to conduct surveys on private property before exercising eminent domain authority. For instance, Dillon wrote, the Code of 1819 gave a turnpike company “full power and authority to enter upon all lands and tenements through which they may judge it necessary to make said road.”

Foes have questioned whether the Atlantic Coast Pipeline provides a public purpose, given that it is one of four pipelines proposed to run through Virginia and that pipelines are being built to serve New York and nearby markets, freeing up capacity by the existing Transco mega-pipeline serving Virginia.

However, Dillon wrote:

In the Natural Gas Act, Congress ‘declared that the business of transporting and selling natural gas for ultimate distribution to the public is affected with a public interest.’ …  [The Virginia survey law] allows a natural gas company to gather … information required for the certificate by giving it the ability to enter property and conduct a minimally invasive survey. The statute thus facilitates the ‘transportat[ion] and selling’ of natural gas, and thereby serves a public purpose.”

13 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Energy

Tagged ,

The Rule of Firsties

Posted on September 17, 2015 by | Leave a comment
Statue of Captain John Smith overlooking the James River

Statue of Captain John Smith overlooking the James River

by James A. Bacon

I was chatting the other day with a friend, a William & Mary professor living in Williamsburg, about the Surry-Skiffes Creek transmission line project (see “An Intractable Dilemma“). Despite the high stakes involved, he said, he hadn’t paid much attention to the controversy, finding it hard to generate sympathy for a bunch of rich retirees in Kingsmill Resort raising a ruckus about their viewsheds.

His response amused me, for the controversy whirling around Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed construction of a 500 kV transmission line across a historic stretch of the James River is a lot more consequential than the views enjoyed by a few rich guys living on the river. The transmission line, designed to head off rolling blackouts for some 500,000 people living on the Virginia Peninsula, would traverse the closest thing that many Virginians have to sacred ground — “Virginia’s founding river,” as one foe described it to me.

I totally understand the concerns of the transmission line foes — even those of millionaires sipping martinis on the patios of their mansions as they soak up the river views. Plutocrats are people, too. But after several years of writing about controversial infrastructure projects in Virginia — highways, gas pipelines, transmission lines — I worry whether we have created institutional gridlock. At the rate we’re going, it will be impossible to build almost anything anymore.

The U.S. 460 Connector project was done in by wetlands. The U.S 29 Bypass ran into a buzzsaw of opposition engendered in part by fears that automobile exhaust would harm the health of children in nearby schools. (For what it’s worth, I was highly skeptical of both projects on economic grounds.) Now two proposed gas pipelines are being contested on a variety of grounds, the most potent of which is that, even though the pipelines are underground, landowners can’t abide the grassy right-of-way above ground. Businesses can’t even build wind turbines in the state because they’ll ruin the natural beauty of mountain ridges.

Think of all the project disqualifiers out there: wetlands, archaeological sites, old burial grounds, rivers, streams, wells, eagles’ nests, sturgeon breeding grounds, Indian tribal territories, schools, historical sites, and mountain ridge lines — and that’s just off the top of my head. Making the problem immeasurably worse for anyone wanting to build infrastructure, everyone’s got a viewshed and everyone wants to keep it as pristine as possible on the not-unreasonable grounds that the intrusion of ugly industrial infrastructure will hurt their property values. If eagles’ nests and burial grounds put thousands of acres off limits to development, view sheds rope off thousands of square miles.

There’s a philosophical issue worth exploring here. Whose viewshed matters? When Captain John Smith set foot upon Jamestown Island, Virginia was pristine. Waves of settlers descended upon the colony and chopped down much of the forest. No one objected (other than the Indians, and the least of their problems was the loss of picturesque views). Then came railroads and industry, but no one protested the loss of viewsheds. Then came roads and highways, and no one objected to them either. It wasn’t until the development of zoning codes and the growth of the environmental and conservation movements that viewsheds became a matter of concern. In the past few decades a new definition of property rights has come into play — the right to a view, asserted by the guy who got there first, over other peoples’ property. Call it the Rule of Firsties.

I’m far more sympathetic to property owners who want to preserve view sheds on their own land from disruption caused by utilities requiring easements, as is typically the case with property owners fighting the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast Pipelines. These people should be compensated for their loss of property values. I’m less sympathetic to those who assert a right to views of other people’s property. (In the case of the Surry-Skiffes Creek transmission line, the controversy is mainly over the view shed of the river, a commons.)

That reminds me of a story about the hamlet of Waterford, a community in Loudoun County that had preserved its character intact since the days of its founding by Quakers in the 18th century. The houses fronted on charming small-town streets; the back yards looked upon bucolic farmland. Several years ago, a developer acquired (or threatened to acquire) a neighboring farm and proposed developing a subdivision there. Talk about disrupting a viewshed! What made Waterford residents different from others is that they didn’t sue to deprive the developer his right to build on his property. If I recall the story rightly, they raised money to buy out his property and set up a trust to preserve their viewshed in perpetuity.

Waterford did not invoke the Rule of Firsties. But across Virginia, other people are doing so. As long as Virginia’s population and economy continue growing, we will need new roads, pipelines, transmission lines and other infrastructure. We have to find a way to build these things. At the same time, Virginia is a state that values history and property rights. We do not achieve progress by trampling historic sites or property rights. Finding the right balance will be difficult. It helps to remember that the tension between property owners and utilities is built into the nature of things. There are no angels or demons here, just people trying to do the right thing.

Leave a comment

Posted in Energy, Property rights

Tagged , ,

A Plethora of Pipelines

Posted on August 18, 2015 by | Leave a comment

pipeline_constructionFour companies are talking about building gas pipelines through Virginia. How many are needed — and who decides?

by James A. Bacon

How many natural gas pipelines does Virginia need? A lot of people are asking that question as two projects — the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline — are actively developing routes between the Marcellus shale gas fields to the northwest and fast-growing markets to the south. Meanwhile, the Williams Companies, owner of the giant Transco pipeline, is talking up the Appalachian Connector, and Columbia Gas Transmission says it might upgrade an existing pipeline terminating in Northern Virginia.

All told, the four projects would add a capacity of 6.8 billion cubic feet per day, or roughly 200 billion cubic feet monthly. While much, if not most, of that gas would be destined for markets outside Virginia, that’s still a tremendous amount of capacity. By way of comparison, existing pipelines deliver to Virginia between 20 billion and 60 billion billion cubic feet monthly, depending on the time of year.

The question of how much is too much has become an urgent one as landowners in the path of the proposed pipelines resist survey crews from entering their property and vow to resist acquisition of their land by eminent domain. To acquire right of way using eminent domain, they say, companies must articulate a compelling public need to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). While there may be a need for some new pipeline capacity, they contend, it’s hard to justify all four projects.

“We’ve got a big infrastructure build-out proposed,” says Greg Buppert, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), who is tracking the issue. “My suspicion is that some but not all of this capacity is needed. There is even a possibility that existing infrastructure can meet the need.”

But some say the market is self-limiting. Pipeline companies won’t spend billions of dollars adding new capacity unless they get enough long-term contracts to ensure they can pay for a project. If there is insufficient demand to support all four pipeline projects, all four pipelines will not get built.

For decades, Virginia has relied mainly upon two companies, the Williams Companies and Columbia Gas, to deliver gas to the state. Williams operates the high-capacity Transco pipeline — energy journalist Housley Carr refers to it as “the gas-transportation equivalent of an eight-lane highway”– connecting the Gulf of Mexico gas fields with New York by way of Virginia and other Atlantic Coast states. Columbia Gas runs a parallel pipeline highway west of the Appalachias, which serves a multi-state distribution system that feeds into Virginia via West Virginia.

Traditionally, most gas from both pipelines has come from the Gulf of Mexico. But fracking has turned North American energy economics topsy turvy. Gas fields tapping the Marcellus and Utica shale deposits in West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and Ohio are reputed to contain as much natural gas as Saudi Arabia. Marcellus gas is abundant and cheap, and gas pipeline companies have been scrambling to develop new markets, mostly in the U.S., but also for foreign markets by means of Liquefied Natural Gas.

The explosion in supply coincides with a surge in demand, especially from electric power companies. In two major waves of regulation in recent years the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has mandated power companies to reduce their toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants and then, with final rules issued early August, to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 32% nationally. In both cases, utilities are shifting en masse from coal to natural gas. While renewable sources such as solar and wind power are expected to gain electricity market share, industry officials say they must be backed up by gas generators to take up the slack when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, so demand growth for renewables actually supports demand growth for natural gas. Meanwhile, gas companies foresee a kick in long-term demand from a growing population and economy, especially among manufacturing operations seeking to tap some of the world’s lowest cost energy and chemical feedstock.

“Virginia is in need of new natural gas transmission that can get these new reserves to the parts of Virginia that need it the most,” says Christina Nuckols, deputy communications director for Governor Terry McAuliffe. “Hampton Roads is considered an energy cul-de-sac where natural gas capacity constraint has been an issue for years.  Particular counties in central and southern Virginia also have reported on numerous occasions that they lose out on manufacturing-related economic development opportunities almost immediately because they cannot provide access to natural gas.

“With any new market opportunity, there are going to be a number of companies looking to find success,” she says. “All of these proposed pipeline projects are recognition that Virginia is in need of additional natural gas capacity and the infrastructure to provide it.  It remains to be seen which projects will get approval from the appropriate entities.”

Here are the major projects proposed for Virginia: Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Economic development, Energy, Property rights, Regulations and Government Oversight

Tagged ,

Pipelines and Property Lines

Posted on July 23, 2015 by | Leave a comment
Charlotte Rea. Photo credit: All Pain, No Gain

Charlotte Rea. Photo credit: All Pain, No Gain

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline wants to inspect land along a proposed 550-mile route. Legal challenges from landowners could re-write a 2004 law governing property rights in utility surveys.

by James A. Bacon

Charlotte Rea decided when she retired that she wanted to live near where she grew up near Charlottesville. She found “a little piece of heaven” in Nelson County: a 29-acre spread on the north fork of the Rockfish River. With her retirement savings, she purchased the land with the idea of keeping it undeveloped if things worked out but selling two lots if she needed the cash. “All of my money is in the land,” Rea says. “It’s my long-term care insurance.”

She never imagined that someone would want her land for industrial purposes. But her homestead, as it turns out, came to be situated on the proposed route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) linking the natural gas fields of West Virginia with markets in Virginia and North Carolina. The 125-foot pipeline right-of-way would cut a swath across the river and through forested wetlands on her property that host a species of rare orchid. An ag-forestal district designation restricts development and prohibits industrial uses, she says. “Except it appears Dominion can industrialize it by running a pipeline through it. My property  will become an underground natural gas storage site.”

Since announcing its original plans, ACP has redrawn its proposed route, leaving her property untouched. But Rea doesn’t consider the new route to be definitive, and she is little reassured. “My future is totally blown up, not knowing what’s happening to my property. No one wants to buy land with a natural gas pipeline going through the middle of the view shed. I stand to lose $50,000 in property value. I couldn’t sleep at night worrying about the darn thing coming through.” 

The 63-year-old career Air Force veteran decided to fight back, signing up as co-chair of the “All Pain No Gain” group opposing the pipeline. Not only does Rea not want to see the pipeline built, she objects to ACP or its contractors even coming onto private property to survey the land. And she is just one of dozens of landowners who view the pipeline the same way.

Dominion Transmission, ACP’s managing partner, filed suit this spring in local courts against more than 100 property in order to gain access to their land. Many, like Rea, were clustered near the Blue Ridge mountains in Augusta and Nelson Counties. A local judge ruled that the notice letters had been improperly issued by Dominion Transmission, so the pipeline company withdrew the pending cases and started re-filing lawsuits as ACP. As of early July, says Rea, she knew of 27 re-filed lawsuits. Meanwhile, pipeline foes have filed two of their own lawsuits in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the state law.

The lawsuits are shaping up as the Old Dominon’s biggest battle over property rights in years. The courts will be called upon to define the balance between landowners like Rea who wish to be left alone and utilities like the four corporate partners of the $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline — including Virginia energy giant Dominion, Duke Energy, AGL Resources and Piedmont Natural Gas — who argue that there is a compelling public need to build more gas pipelines as electric utilities replace coal with gas in their fuel mix. The legal outcome could influence other pipeline projects as well. Three groups besides ACP have expressed possible interest in building pipelines from the West Virginia shale fields to markets in Virginia and points south.

Pipeline foes make two overarching arguments. First, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has not yet issued a certificate declaring the ACP project to be in the public interest, says Joe Lovett, an attorney with Appalachian Mountain Advocates. Because ACP cannot yet argue that the pipeline is for “public use,” it has no right to survey land without the consent of property owners.

Second, pipeline foes say, landowners deserve compensation for survey crews tramping over their property. The right to exclude others from entering your property “is one of the most important rights in the bundle of property rights,” says Josh Baker, an attorney with Waldo & Lyle, one of the preeminent landowner rights firms in Virginia. When multiple survey teams — ACP lists five different categories of crews — enter the property, they can cause considerable inconvenience. While the Virginia code allows for “actual damages” resulting from a survey, it allows nothing for inconvenience.

Dominion asserts that it is fully within its rights to conduct the surveys as long as it complies with requirements to request permission in writing to inspect the land and then provide a notice of intent to enter. Obtaining a certificate of public convenience and necessity from FERC is necessary to acquire land through eminent domain authority but not to survey land, says Jim Norvelle, director media relations for Dominion Energy. Surveys are governed by state law.

As for land surveys constituting a “taking,” there is plenty of legal precedent to support ACP’s position, Norvelle says. “We do not expect to damage anyone’s property when surveying. In the unlikely event there is some damage, we will reimburse the landowner.”

A half century ago, pipelines in Virginia were either intrastate pipelines under State Corporation Commission jurisdiction or they were segments of interstate pipelines built and “stitched together over time,” says Jim Kibler, who was active in eminent domain litigation in Virginia before joining Atlanta-based AGL Resources as senior vice president-external affairs. Local public utility commissions, including Virginia’s SCC, provided most regulatory oversight. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Agriculture & forestry, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Property rights, Regulations and Government Oversight

Tagged , ,

Reports at Forty Paces

Posted on July 9, 2015 by | Leave a comment
pistol_duel

Dueling reports

by James A. Bacon

How do citizens know whom to believe in the debate over the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), a proposed 550-mile natural gas pipeline between West Virginia gas fields and markets in Virginia and North Carolina?

Dominion, managing partner of ACP, has commissioned studies from Fairfax-based ICF International, a technology and management consulting firm, and Chmura Economics & Analytics, a Richmond econometrics firm, to analyze the pipeline’s economic impact. Both  reports buttressed the utility’s case that the project would be overwhelmingly beneficial.

In “The Economic Impact of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline,” ICF concluded that over the next 20 years Virginia and North Carolina could expect to gain $377 million a year in energy cost savings,  2,200 permanent full-time jobs, $131 million in annual labor income, and $218 million in annual gross state product. Likewise, in “The Economic Impact of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina,” Chmura said the project would inject $456 million annually into the three-state economy between 2014 and 2019 and support 2,873 jobs.

Yesterday the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and the Allegheny-Blue Ridge, which oppose the pipeline, released its own report. That document, “Atlantic Coast Pipeline Benefits Review,” prepared by Synapse Energy Economics Inc., out of Cambridge, Mass., contends that the alleged pipeline benefits are “overstated, lack sufficient supporting data, and fail to account for environmental and societal costs.”

The Synapse report doesn’t make any economic forecasts of its own; rather, the authors point out limitations and weaknesses in the Dominion-sponsored reports and enumerates negative impacts that those reports did not take into consideration. Among the criticisms:

  • Assumed differential in gas prices. ICF argues that gas from Marcellus shale in West Virginia and neighboring states, to be transported by the ACP, will be cheaper than so-called Henry Hub gas from the Gulf Coast, which Virginia and North Carolina consume now. But Synapse questions whether that price differential will last.
  • Assumed savings to electric customers. ICF assumes that cheaper natural gas prices will be passed to Virginia consumers as lower electricity prices. But due to the nature of inter-regional power sharing, Synapse says is it unclear whether those savings would be passed on to Virginia consumers or shared regionally.
  • Assumed job creation. ICF assumes that Virginia consumers will spend that energy savings, stimulating local economic activity. But “the study did not provide any underlying data to support this claim,” says Synapse. “Critical inputs and assumptions — such as the assumed direct energy savings by sector — are necessary to satisfactorily review this finding.”
  • Are permanent jobs really permanent? The ICF study estimates that 2,225 jobs will be supported over 20 years (for 44,600 total job years). But the study doesn’t break down the impact year by year, so it is impossible to know if the jobs are sustained over time or if they start strong and dribble out over time.

Synapse also argued that ICF and Chmura failed to take into account negatives such as the pipeline impact on property values, damage to wildlife habitat and clean water, and the risk of accidents.

The SELC report holds ICF and Chmura to a high standard — it insists that  consultants provide sufficient detail in their data and assumptions to allow third-party review and verification, and that studies be more transparent with their numbers. “In an economic jobs and benefits analysis,” Symapse says, “a complete set of modeling assumptions, inputs, and outputs” typically would be included.

ICF stated that it based its analysis upon years of experience in North American natural gas and “proprietary software tools and databases,” including its Gas Market Model and Integrated Planning Model to model the North American gas and electric markets with and without ACP.

Dominion stands by the ICF and Chmura numbers. Unlike Synapse or SELC,the company has skin in the game. It seeks the best forecasts it can find because it bases business decisions on the data. The utility uses ICF’s commodity price forecast for the Dominion Virginia Power Integrated Resource Plan and other regulatory filings. The company also uses ICF for its own internal business deliberations, says Jim Norvelle, director-media relations for Dominion. “It is safe to say there are significant business decisions made using the ICF International forecast.”

“ICF International and Chmura are internationally known and respected firms,” says Norvelle. “Their findings quantify what is obvious and undeniable: the Atlantic Coast Pipeline will bring significant financial and other benefits to the residents and businesses of Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. It is Economics 101. More natural gas supplies mean lower prices, more money available for investment, better reliability and cleaner air. Just plain common sense.”

Bacon’s bottom line: Synapse makes a good point: Consultant studies should be fully transparent, providing sufficient data and articulating their assumptions for third parties to critique them. But what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When SELC and pipeline opponents make assertions about the pipeline’s economic and environmental effects, they need to abide by the same standards they demand of Dominion. They, too, need to lay out their facts and assumptions for public scrutiny.

Leave a comment

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure

Tagged , ,

A Long and Winding Pipeline

Posted on July 8, 2015 by | Leave a comment
Virginia Natural Gas' Hampton Roads pipeline under construction. Photo credit: Virginia Natural Gas

Virginia Natural Gas’ Hampton Roads pipeline under construction. Photo credit: Virginia Natural Gas

by James A. Bacon

The developer of the 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline wants to alter its proposed route between the West Virginia gas fields and markets in Virginia and North Carolina, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Dominion Transmission Inc., leader of the company formed to build the pipeline, filed proposed route changes with federal regulators that would make greater use of existing rights of way, primarily Dominion-owned electric transmission lines.

The route changes partially address landowner criticism that the pipeline should run as much as possible along existing rights of way, be they state highways, electric transmission lines or other pipelines. But the changes submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) are not likely to allay criticism from landowners in Augusta County and Nelson County where opposition to the pipeline is centered. The route changes would occur in Brunswick County, Southampton County and the City of Suffolk.

Foes told the Times-Dispatch that they were encouraged by Dominion’s effort to use existing rights of way, but… “Hopefully, this is a start, not a finish,” said Nancy Sorrells, co-chairwoman of the Augusta County Alliance and the All Pain, No Gain public relations campaign against the pipeline.

Dominion said the new proposed route would travel 16 miles of existing utility rights of way in Brunswick County, nine miles in Southampton, and seven miles in Suffolk.

Bacon’s bottom line: Routing pipelines is an incredibly complex undertaking. Pipeline projects are subject to intensive environmental review processes that consider impact on wildlife habitat, clean water and cultural & archaeological heritage. Running pipelines along existing rights of way saves considerable hassle as well as land acquisition costs.

“Utilities love to co-locate, if they can do it. You only have to deal with one landowner,” says James Kibler, senior vice president-external affairs for AGL Resources, an Atlanta-based gas pipeline company, one of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s four partners. Before joining AGL, Kibler conducted right-of-way acquisition work for Dominion.

As an example, Kibler says, the Virginia Natural Gas Crossing Pipeline, built in 2010 to connect the gas distribution systems north and south of Hampton Roads, utilized Dominion high-voltage transmission line right of way, drilled under an Old Dominion University parking lot, followed a City of Norfolk sewer lateral, and used six miles of Norfolk Southern rail line.

Trouble is, existing rights of way don’t always go where the pipeline needs to go, and the right of way may not be able to accommodate a pipeline. As the Times-Dispatch explained:

Dominion … said it is harder to route an underground pipeline along existing utility corridors in mountainous western Virginia than it is in the flat terrain of Southside.

“In the western part of the state, there’s just not a lot of opportunities there. There’s just not,” [said Greg Parks, construction supervisor].

Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle said the company also is constrained by lack of space for a pipeline in existing public rights of way “because the pipeline cannot be built directly under electric transmission lines, on top of other pipelines, or alongside or in the median of highways, for safety reasons.”

Says Kibler: “It is a very involved, tedious process in which no one is ever totally happy.”

Leave a comment

Posted in Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Land use & Development, Property rights, Regulations and Government Oversight

Tagged ,

Business-Labor Coalition Enters Pipeline Debate

Posted on June 26, 2015 by | Leave a comment
Proposed route of Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Proposed route of Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

by James A. Bacon

More than 100 business, labor and economic development organizations have announced the formation of an advocacy group, EnergySure, to promote the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The founding members “represent millions of employees and associates across Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina,” says the organization’s press release.

EnergySure is being funded by the four Atlantic Coast Pipeline partners: Dominion, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources. “The ACP partners serve millions of homes and businesses that depend on the companies to meet their energy needs,” states the group’s website. “The EnergySure Coalition was created as a platform for these consumer voices to be heard.”

The proposed 550-mile pipeline would transport natural gas originating from fracked natural gas fields in West Virginia to markets in Virginia and North Carolina.

The advocacy group comes together in response to spirited opposition by landowners along the proposed route, especially in bucolic Augusta County and Nelson County in Virginia. Led by the All Pain No Gain group, foes say the pipeline would harm property values, contaminate water, pose a safety risk and negatively impact local craft agriculture while doing little to create jobs or lower energy prices.

EnergySure hits three main themes in support of the pipeline:

Reliable energy. Virginia and North Carolina need a reliable supply of natural gas to support economic growth. Utility demand for natural gas is expected to triple as power companies in Virginia and North Carolina retire coal-fired power plants and burn cleaner natural gas in its place. Pipeline advocates also assert that existing pipelines are approaching maximum capacity and the inability to bring more gas into the region will make it difficult to recruit manufacturers that require natural gas in their processes.

Economic development. Pipeline construction will support 17,240 jobs across Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, asserts EnergySure. Longer term, the pipeline also will save Virginia and North Carolina consumers $377 million yearly over the next 2o years, which in turn will stimulate local economies.

The money consumers save on energy each year could help support 2,200 jobs when reinvested back into Virginia and North Carolina’s economies. Over the next 20 years, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is projected to generate $7.5 billion in energy savings, $2.6 billion in labor income and $4.4 billion in gross state product to Virginia and North Carolina.

Another bonus: Projected cumulative property taxes are estimated at $25 million annually.

(The website does not say where the economic impact numbers come from. The data comes from a report, “The Economic Impacts of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline,” written by ICF  International, a Northern Virginia professional services firm, for Dominion Transmission Inc. ICF utilized its Gas Market Model and Integrated Planning Model to model the North American gas and electric markets with and without the pipeline. )

Green energy. Two waves of federal regulation — one enforcing stricter standards for emissions of toxic chemicals and the other curtailing carbon dioxide — leave Virginia and North Carolina power companies with little choice but to substitute natural gas for coal in their fuel mix. In addition, gas-fired power plants serve as back-up for solar and wind power, whose power output varies with time of day and weather conditions.

As for local environmental impact, EnergySure concedes that there will be “temporary disruption” during the construction phase, but that “most of the land” the pipeline crosses will return to its original land use. Also, inspectors will be conducting tests through the construction process to ensure water quality remains the same as it was before.

Bacon’s bottom line. With the publication of the EnergySure and All Pain No Gain websites, the battle lines are drawn and the issues clear for all to see.  At the moment, the conflict is shaping up as a David and Goliath contest: rural landowners in Nelson and Augusta counties pitted against the business, labor and economic development establishments of three states.

It remains to be seen how two important constituencies align themselves. Outside property rights groups have not yet played a vocal role in the debate so far, although one would think that they would sympathize with local landowners. Another potential ally, the environmentalist movement, appears to be conflicted. Environmentalists typically side with landowners seeking to protect the local environment against disruptive construction projects, and some environmental groups oppose anything that would promote the production and consumption of fossil fuels (including natural gas) for any reason. On the other hand, pragmatists in the environmental community recognize that the energy economy cannot transition away from coal without more natural gas. To date, major environmental groups have kept a low profile in the pipeline debate.

Politically speaking, the entry of dozens of business, labor and economic development organizations on the side of the pipeline partners would seem tip the odds strongly in favor of the pipeline.

Leave a comment

Posted in Economic development, Energy, Environment, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Property rights

Tagged ,

Virginia Voters: Pump, Baby, Pump

Posted on June 16, 2015 by | Leave a comment

pipeline
by James A. Bacon

By significant margins, Virginians support construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a proposed 550-mile pipeline that would deliver natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina. Voters also support measures that would promote continued exploitation of fossil fuels, including the Keystone XL oil pipeline, off-shore drilling for oil and gas, and the generation of electricity using coal-fired power plants. Support for fossil fuels is broad-based, cutting across party and ideological lines.

That’s the big conclusion to emerge from an early June survey of 500 registered voters by Chevy Chase, Md.-based Hickman Analytics Inc. for the Consumer Energy Alliance, an organization describing itself as the “voice of the energy consumer.” Fifty-six percent of those polled support the pipeline either “strongly” or “somewhat,” compared to only 25% who oppose it. (The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percent.)

However, the poll showed the electorate to be evenly split over the extraction of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a sentiment that could diminish support for the pipeline in the future.

Media coverage of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline so far has framed the controversy as a property rights/eminent domain issue, focusing primarily on objections raised by landowners along the route. While land owners may care deeply about the impact of the pipeline on their property values, the issue barely registers among voters generally. Only two percent of the voters surveyed mentioned “eminent domain” as a reason for opposing the pipeline.

Virginia voters are far more ambivalent about fracking. While they support offshore drilling, the Keystone Pipeline (which would transport oil extracted from Canadian tar sands) and coal-fired power generation, voters split evenly over fracking.

fracking2

Moreover, fracking foes are more intense in their opposition — those who strongly oppose fracking number 23% compared to 15% who strongly support it.

As Atlantic Coast Pipeline works through the property rights/eminent domain issues by re-drawing the pipeline route and adopting other palliative measures, expect foes to shift the terms of debate. Only 1% of poll respondents cited fracking as a reason for opposing the pipeline — a miniscule percentage that may reflect voter ignorance of the fact that a considerable proportion of the natural gas transported by the pipeline would originate from fracked wells. Insofar as foes manage to depict the pipeline as an adjunct to and enabler of fracking, they may gain political traction.

The Hickman Analytics poll seems to be reasonably objective, although it is not without its limitations.

On the positive side, the poll draws from a sample that is reasonably representative of the electorate — 45% Democrats compared to 37% Republicans; 30% liberals compared to 44% conservatives.

Also positive, the wording of the poll question is neutral: “As you may know, there is a proposal to build a 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, to bring natural gas from West Virginia through Virginia and North Carolina. Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose building the Atlantic Coast Pipeline?” Crucially, pollsters asked that question before they asked other questions relating to offshore drilling, Keystone XL Pipeline, coal-fired power plants and other questions that might have biased a response.

On the negative side, the poll did not plumb voter views on fossil fuel pollution, CO2 emissions or renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biofuels that are regarded as alternatives to natural gas.

Then, yet again, neither did the poll explore other complexities to the pipeline debate. For instance, pipeline supporters make the connection between pipeline construction, economic development and jobs. Also, an argument can be made that natural gas-fired electricity is a complement to intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar. The poll did not address any of those issues either.

In sum, the findings are highly favorable to Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the consortium of companies behind it — Dominion, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources — but point to potential difficulties down the road if foes tap into Virginians’ ambivalence over fracking.

Leave a comment

Posted in Energy, Environment

Tagged