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.

There are several groups that oppose the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline.  The Southern Environmental Law Center, the Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and several local county groups.  There are probably some others I don’t know about.  Most of the opposition is focused in Virginia, but there is a little bit of organized opposition in West Virginia.

We’re in favor of the pipeline, as the additional takeaway capacity should increase the amount of development in West Virginia, and increased development here will increase the amount of business we do.

At the same time, it kind of hurts to see long stretches of West Virginia become less wild and wonderful.

This may not be West Virginia, but it sure looks a lot like what I’ve seen.

On the other hand, all but a few thousand acres of West Virginia was clear cut by the first few decades of the 20th century, so it wouldn’t be the first time that West Virginia has come back from intense environmental impacts.

That’s all beside the point, though.

These pipelines are going to be in the ground for decades.  Why?  There is enough gas in West Virginia to produce for decades, and in spite of the green movement (nothing against them, I think solar, wind, geothermal, and wave/tide are really cool tech) stating it can provide enough energy, the numbers just don’t support the claims.  It’s going to be decades before green energy is more than just a small proportion of total energy output.  So we’re going to need these pipeline for decades.  There will probably be more in the future, too.

In spite of the claims of the pipeline opposition groups, we do need these pipelines.  They do need to be done safely, and they do need to be done with as little environmental impact as possible, and the landowners’ needs have to be met.  But they do need to be done.

Here is a well-reasoned editorial published in the Roanoke Times that makes a really good case for the argument that the FERC isn’t stopping the pipelines.  It points out (perhaps accidentally) that the FERC doesn’t do a good job of making anybody happy, but it does an excellent job of doing what it’s supposed to.  I won’t steal the article’s thunder as it’s not exactly long and is well written.