Maryland Board of Public Works Blocks TransCanada Pipeline

In a major victory for anti-pipeline activists, the Maryland Board of Public Works voted today 3-0 to deny TransCanada an easement to put its fracked gas pipeline just west of Hancock, Maryland.

The decision deals a major blow to not just TransCanada, but to the Mountaineer Gas pipeline in West Virginia, which TransCanada would have fed with fracked natural gas, and to the proposed Rockwool insulation factory in Jefferson County, which was banking on the gas to fuel its furnaces.

“I was thrilled to be there today with around forty others citizens of West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia to see the Board of Public Works vote against the Columbia Gas (TransCanada) portion of the Eastern Panhandle Expansion Project,” said Tracy Cannon of Eastern Panhandle Protectors and one of the lead organizers against the pipeline.

“It’s also a great day for all those living in the path of the pipeline. If the Maryland part of the pipeline is never built, then there will never be gas to supply the West Virginia part of the pipeline. Pipelines without gas cannot explode.”

“Governor Hogan didn’t say why he voted against the easement at this morning’s meeting. I believe he may just be feeling the spirit of our times. People are turning against fracking, fossil fuels and pipeline infrastructure as the reality of Climate Chaos sinks in. The wildfires in California, the massive hurricanes, flooding- all these have brought home the reality that cutting fossil fuel consumption is the only way for us to survive and keep the planet habitable.”

“May this be the first of many dominoes to fall. The Mountain Valley and the Atlantic Coast pipelines have been handed set-backs recently. Let’s call for a nationwide moratorium on these hazardous pipelines. Fossil fuel infrastructure is not the direction we want to go in if we want to keep existing as a species.”

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