Today the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance submitted a comment letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission calling on the agency to reexamine the pending application of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC and question the soil surveys conducted along the entire pipeline route.
The United States Forest Service (USFS) complained on November 5 to FERC that the ACPLLC had misrepresented soils surveying it had conducted in October in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. The USFS said that the company failed to follow appropriate surveying protocols or use qualified persons to conduct the surveying.
ABRA supports the recommendations of the USFS, which recommended that FERC not utilize data collected from the surveys in its conducting of an Environmental Impact Statement. Soils surveying is a crucial part of determining whether or not the land through which a proposed pipeline is suitable for such construction, and improper judgments about soils can exacerbate the environmental impact of a project.
“There is a troubling pattern of corporate incompetence and strong evidence of purposeful deceit,” said Lew Freeman, Chair of Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance. “Citizens across West Virginia and Virginia have already raised concerns about the impacts of this proposed pipeline. How are they expected to trust the claims the company makes about the safety of the pipeline?”
About Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance: ABRA is a 44-member coalition of citizens organizations in Virginia and West Virginia concerned about the proposed 564-mile natural gas pipeline that Dominion Resources and its partners have proposed to build from West Virginia to North Carolina. www.abralliance.org
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