The Roanoke Times has published numerous articles regarding the Mountain Valley Pipeline, both for and against.  Their latest article, by Duncan Evans, digs into the issue of the risk of having a pipeline close to a home, a school, or a building of any sort.

The article features a couple whose home is within 65 feet of the center line of the pipeline.  Can you imagine your house being that close to a 42 inch pipeline?  I can.  I have a client whose home is within 125 feet of the center line of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.  When I walked from the house out to the pipeline location and turned around it was shocking.  It feels invasive.  It feels dangerous.  Regardless of how well engineered and well built the pipeline is, it would never feel completely comfortable.

That doesn’t take into account how disruptive the construction of the pipeline will be to those folks’ lives.

I’m no opponent of either pipeline project.  I see them as beneficial to West Virginia’s economy.  They’ll provide short term construction jobs and long term natural gas development and production jobs.  They’ll provide some nice tax dollars for a while, and some nice financial windfalls to surface owners.  They’ll provide a cleaner-burning fuel for power plants.

I am an opponent of putting pipelines too close to peoples’ houses.