Not in my backyard . . . I don’t know who invented the acronym for that, but we certainly have had a large dose of it in the past months. The Mountain Valley Pipeline, aka MVP (not Most Valuable Player), has been much in the news. It is an issue of immense complexity and great importance.
No one wants a nuclear power plant, a wind farm, a fracking rig, a high pressure 48” natural gas pipeline, or anything of that nature near or, worse yet, on their property. Add to that whether we need MVP or not is yet another matter. The fact remains that we will need additional sources of energy to sustain what we already have to say nothing of the requirements of the future.
The idea of laying hundreds of miles of buried pipe is daunting enough, but it is helpful to remember that under our entire area millions of gallons of petroleum in many forms are flowing 24 hours a day.
If you doubt that, take a look at the Montvale tank farm or any similar petroleum storage facility. Tanker trucks by the hundreds draw down the supply every day of the year and deliver it to your friendly gas station. On the rarest of occasions there will be a leakage or an explosion at such a facility, but when those installations were made, not a word was heard about environmental issues. The technology for laying the pipelines was not publically discussed, we were not concerned about tanker trains falling into rivers or breaking loose to rocket into a sleeping town killing more than 50 people. Those things happen and will continue to occur despite our best efforts.
The production of energy is the backbone on which our economy rests. Now we are justifiably worried about global warming, the carbon footprint of countless industries, and the fact that there is little consensus about how to approach the problem.
There is hope, however. The technologies involved have not been static. Windfarms have increased in their efficiency to the point that far fewer towers are needed to produce much more electricity than just a decade ago. Natural gas, for which MVP is being designed, is said to be much more efficient than burning coal. Automotive applications are being developed. Ground penetrating radar to detect karst formation and at-risk aquafers are widely in use.
While it may not be of comfort to many, federal and state agencies are extremely mindful of protecting the environment from haphazard energy production. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is tasked with close oversite; that agency was not even in existence decades ago. Remember just a few years ago the concern about the nuclear tailings from the then proposed Pittsylvania uranium mines. Regulatory agencies put the brakes on that idea.
None of that helps the rural landowner who finds his property being surveyed by MVP or some like-minded developer. At least now they have to ask his permission to do so. One would hope that if pipe is laid, the proper oversight by a neutral party would insure restoration of the surface to its natural appearance and the groundwater would be protected.
Those in whose “backyard” the pipeline lies 8 feet below the ground should be entitled to profit from the use of their land. One state senate candidate quite fairly proposes that the owner should be paid a royalty for every cubic yard of natural gas pumped under the property based on the length of the traverse.
The final decision on energy matters will not be made by yard posters but by regulatory agencies. We should trust them to do their work in the best public interest, not based on pressures from the energy lobbyists. If they fail in this, then the government should be held accountable as well as the developers.
Hayden Hollingsworth
