As she walked across a mountain meadow, Karen Scott passed a wooden stake driven into the moist soil to mark the route a natural gas pipeline will take if it slices through her family farm.
Scott pointed to the nearby ridgetop of Poor Mountain, where springs fed by rainwater cascade down steep slopes. Bottom Creek gurgled in the background. Just below the surface of the soggy plateau lay more water.
From where Scott stood — on one of the wettest parts of Roanoke County’s highest mountain — she feared that contamination caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline will flow down the watershed to the valley below.
“The springs to me are sacred, ” Scott said. “They should be to everybody. Because that’s where everybody’s water comes from.”
On Wednesday, Scott will take her concerns to Richmond, where the State Water Control Board could decide the fate of the controversial pipeline.
In one of the last remaining regulatory tests facing the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the board will decide whether to issue a water quality certification needed for the $3.7 billion project, which would carry natural gas at high pressure through the Roanoke and New River valleys.
Certification can be granted only if the board finds a “reasonable assurance” that stream, creek, river and lake water will be protected during pipeline construction. The work will involve cutting trees, blasting bedrock, bulldozing land, digging trenches and laying a 42-inch steel pipe that, although buried, will be marked by bare strips along the landscape.
Scott’s voice is but one of more than 8,000 heard so far.
During a final public hearing to be held Wednesday, she and others who have already submitted input will have a chance to respond to a summary of their comments and written responses prepared by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The board is expected to take a vote on Thursday.
Opponents say they are hopeful but wary.
They are concerned because DEQ has decided not to assess the impact of the pipeline’s crossing of individual streams and wetlands. That job has been ceded to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which critics say applies a boilerplate permitting process that will leave gaps in government oversight.
The water control board’s scope will be limited to what it calls “upland areas” where pipeline construction “may indirectly affect state waters, ” according to procedures for the meeting posted to DEQ’s website.
DEQ is already inclined to favor the project, critics say, based in part on its suggested conditions for a draft water quality certification that will be presented to the board.
And with Gov. Terry McAuliffe and other pipeline supporters plugging its economic benefits, opponents fear their voices will be drowned out by corporate interests.
When it comes to protecting Virginia’s water, Scott said, “nothing is being held out as sacred.”
Protecting a mountain cove
When Karen and Jim Scott decided to raise a family on the piece of Poor Mountain property her father bought, they figured they had the perfect place.
“Having walked all over the mountain and having seen the steepness, I knew there was no way to develop it, ” Jim Scott said. “So we had a lot of confidence that it was a protected mountain cove, and that we were the stewards.
“I’d say we’ve shed a lot of blood, sweat and tears, like any farm family does, with the routine of maintaining the land.”
A few years ago, their son Fred and his wife, Rebecca, decided to build a home on the 150-some acre spread. The Scotts were delighted at the prospect of spending more time with their grandchildren, 4-year old Raina and 2-year-old James.
Then came word that Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC — the corporation behind a 303-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to Pittsylvania County — had selected a route that crossed their land, about 50 yards from their house. The route also bisected the lot where Fred and Rebecca were planning their dream house.
Those plans are now on hold as the Scotts fight the project.
Karen Scott, a soil scientist who evaluates land for septic systems, wrote a 14-page letter to DEQ Director David Paylor, explaining how drainage from Poor Mountain accumulates under flat meadows, where the water table is just a few feet from the surface.
“The plateau is like a big sponge in a plate, ” Scott wrote.
Any leaks from the underground pipe, which will carry “fracked” natural gas extracted from deep within the Appalachian Basin using the hydraulic fracturing process of drilling, would immediately enter the water table, Scott said.
Like many other property owners in the pipeline’s path, the Scotts worry about runoff during construction, which could carry sediment downstream. And they fear that erosion from the pipeline’s 50-foot right of way would channel chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides into the water supply.
Those concerns are shared by Tina Smusz, a retired physician and assistant professor of medicine who has studied the project’s impact.
“The Mountain Valley Pipeline keeps me awake at night due to the threats to our water, ” Smusz said.
Mountain Valley officials say they are complying with all state and federal regulations aimed at protecting water. The pipeline has been routed “to avoid environmentally sensitive areas to the greatest extent possible, ” the company states on its website.
According to Jim Scott, the pipeline will traverse wooded slopes so steep he couldn’t climb them without grabbing hold of saplings for support as he followed the pipeline surveyors who visited his land.
“I can’t imagine doing it, ” he said, “but they said they could.”
First, Mountain Valley needs an easement through his land. The company has sued the Scotts under the legal principal of eminent domain, which allows the taking of private land for public use.
Filed in October, shortly after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the pipeline project, the lawsuit states that condemnation of more than 300 pieces of land is necessary because the company’s efforts to negotiate a price with the owners failed.
The Scotts say they were offered about $7,000. They were not sure exactly how much because the land that Mountain Valley wants an easement on is divided into several parcels. Besides, they never gave the matter much thought.
“You can’t sell peace, ” Jim Scott said. “And you can’t sell time with your grandchildren. You can’t put a price on that. Our lives are just too short.”
A flood of public comments
During a public comment session held over the summer, DEQ was deluged with more than 8,000 takes on the pipeline project.
The comments were made during public hearings. They came in letters, postcards, emails, technical reports and photographs. Others were delivered through petitions, songs, prayers and poems.
It took 12 state employees a combined 1,370 hours to compile what everyone had to say about the Mountain Valley Pipeline and a similar project the board will consider next week, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
DEQ officials declined to say how the comments broke down in terms of pro or con. “Not all comments could be that easily described, ” spokesman Bill Hayden said. “It’s also important to note that the decision on the certification is not made by any type of popular vote. The decision is strictly up to the State Water Control Board.”
Comments in support of the pipeline cited its potential for economic development, the increased safety of transporting natural gas by pipes instead of trucks hauling it on highways, and the decreased reliance on coal to meet the country’s energy needs.
As for the opposition, Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox said in a statement following FERC’s approval of the project that “we continue to listen to the concerns of community members and local officials and respect their opinions.”
In a report on its website, DEQ has grouped the comments into 18 categories. One of the key concerns, about the dangers of building the pipeline amid karst topography where caves and sinkholes are prevalent, was addressed this way by the agency: “With over 2,000 miles of existing gas pipelines currently constructed within karst terrain in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia, it has been demonstrated that pipeline construction can be safely accomplished in karst terrain.”
As for concerns about water contamination, DEQ stated that the additional conditions it has suggested — including frequent inspections and monitoring, riparian buffer protections, and comprehensive mitigation plans — will adequately protect public water supplies.
“The certification covers, in one way or another, every foot of the pipeline as it goes through Virginia, ” DEQ spokeswoman Ann Regn said.
Yet critics say the agency has not provided the board enough information on which to base an informed decision. For example, they say, erosion and sediment control issues will not be considered by the board but addressed later by DEQ staff.
“It’s very clear to me that this project has been rammed down our throats, and it’s time for us to stand up and say we’re not going to take it anymore, ” Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, said earlier this week.
Joining Rasoul at a news conference was Chris Hurst, a Democrat elected to the House of Delegates in November to represent the 12th District in the New River Valley.
Hurst said DEQ needs to better address concerns so that affected residents will be “at the table for the decisions, and not on the menu.”
A special place contaminated?
On a recent autumn afternoon, Karen and Jim Scott took a walk around their property.
They pointed to where MVP has said it wants to use their driveway as an access road while the pipeline is built, with two areas on either side cleared to be used as a temporary work space for construction crews and heavy equipment.
They watched as their grandchildren swung on a vine across an unnamed tributary of Bottom Creek that the pipeline would burrow under.
They wondered if a nearby treehouse built for the children would have to be torn down.
As she headed back to the house, Karen Scott stopped at a pool along Bottom Creek. It was here, several decades ago, that the teacher at Bent Mountain Christian Academy was baptized.
“It’s pure mountain water at that point and it symbolizes cleanliness, ” she said of what her family calls the baptismal pool. “It symbolizes the washing away of any impurities.
“If it was contaminated, that symbolism would not be the same.”