Preserve Craig
Bill Wolf
Co-Chair Preserve Craig, Inc.
There are only a few days left to speak up about our valuable water resources — streams, springs, creeks and wells and help stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). This coming Tuesday, August 22, is the deadline to send comments to our Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) asking that they do their job and deny permits to the Mountain Valley Pipeline because it would harm water quality. A sample letter to DEQ is available at our website www.PreserveCraig.Org.
DEQ can stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline from being built. DEQ does not have to issue these key permits, which would give MVP permission to rip through numerous creeks, rivers and wetlands. DEQ’s published mission is to protect our precious water resources. If they really do their job, they must deny these permits and stop this devastating project from harming Craig County and our region. Similar state agencies have stopped other 42” interstate gas pipelines from being built recently in other states because of the risk of harming their water. But they need to hear this from the public.
The DEQ held public hearings last this week about the MVP in Radford and Chatham and Town Hall-style meetings in Newport and Cave Springs. Numerous Craig County citizens and members of Preserve Craig joined with hundreds of Virginians to speak in opposition to MVP and ask DEQ to protect us. When the director of the DEQ was asked, what would happen if a water supply were damaged by MVP, he answered that you would just have to find an alternative. Well, there are no alternatives here. “Mitigation”, or detailed instruction for construction of this devastating pipeline, will not protect our precious and fragile water systems here in Craig County and our karst mountainous region.
One of the Preserve Craig comments to DEQ at their hearing in Radford stated:
“MVP is a limited liability company, a shell company that has no employees and can disappear at its convenience. EQT, the managing partner of MVP, was caught intentionally polluting water by the Pennsylvania DEQ. EQT pleaded guilty to intentionally contaminating water. Our water quality and landscape is everything to the citizens of Craig County. Allowing a private company to take our land from us is untenable. MVP cannot mitigate these impacts and it is the DEQ’s responsibility to deny any permits to these environmental criminals.”
Thanks to the Craig County government for sending its comments to the DEQ this week, objecting to the project and asking that DEQ require MVP to submit data to document how they will cross every body of water and protect us. Let’s join in and send comments before the deadline, August 22, either postmarked by August 22 or submitted by email to comment-mvp@deq.virginia.gov
This horrendous project can and must be stopped, for the good of all the people. The MVP project would violate our Constitution and numerous laws and regulations intended to protect us, our property and our precious clean water. We’ll need to be ready to prove in court that this is not for “the public good.”
Preserve Craig, Inc. is a 501C3 nonprofit volunteer public charity formed in 1991 using volunteers and donations to protect our natural, historical and cultural resources. Tax-deductible donations are welcome online at www.preservecraig.org or by mail to: Preserve Craig, Inc., PO Box 730, New Castle, VA. 24127. Phone: 540-309-9560. Email: preservecraig@gmail.com
