More than forty citizens from the eastern panhandle of West Virginia filed have letters with the Public Service Commission protesting the proposed Mountaineer Gas pipeline.
The project would run south from Hancock, Maryland, cut east from Berkeley Springs and move on through Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties.
The Blue Heron Environmental Network hired environmental attorney Abigail Benjamin to intervene in the case before the Public Service Commission.
Mountaineer Gas quickly moved to block Benjamin’s appearance.
But Benjamin and Potomac Riverkeeper Brent Walls are planning on traveling to Charleston to present their case to the Commission on Wednesday and Thursday.
In papers filed with the Commission, Walls argues against the pipeline.
Walls argues that the pipeline provides a threat to local waters. And that it relies on a companion pipeline that will have to come under the Potomac River at Hancock — and under the C&O Canal.
“The Potomac River supplies drinking water for more than six million people downstream,” Walls said. “That area also karst geology, and so what is extremely important is to identify the fact that the Mountaineer Gas pipeline is associated with a much larger picture than just what it could bring to West Virginia. Based on these conclusions, I would recommend the commission should reject Mountaineer Gas’s request.
Sharon Kerns-Smith told the Commission that Mountaineer Gas told her that the pipeline was a “public project for the public good,” that they will “pick whatever is best whether you like it or not, that they have a right to eminent domain but would rather “work with” us and “advised us not to seek legal counsel.”
“They kept insisting that a gas line through our property will benefit us and increase our property value,” Kerns-Smith wrote. “This is just a sample of my personal experience and why I am in protest of this case. I feel that the company is trying to sneak into our area and use questionably ethical tactics to take advantage of property owners – some who have preserved farmland – family farms – for generations. If I already do not trust the integrity of this company, I cannot trust the future aspects of the project either.”
Beth Rowland said that “this pipeline does not belong here, close to a commercial sand mine and its regular blasting, by schools, and through our beautiful neck of the woods.”
“Environmental and safety issues have not been addressed,” Rowland said. “In addition, the behavior of Mountaineer Gas should preclude their being allowed to proceed, outright lies, intimidation — of elderly folks, no less — and a generally aggressive stance toward the people who live here. It has no constituency.”
Cassandra Kesecker wrote that “this pipeline would go through our family farm, disrupting farming that has occurred for 100 years.”
“Also our hunting areas would be disturbed. A neighbor will lose her house because the pipeline will be too close for her to safely live there.”
The Warm Springs Watershed Association called on the Commission to reject the proposal in part because of “endangerment to local water sources and people due to potential leaks and explosions.”
The Sleepy Creek Watershed Association, on the other hand, said it was “generally supportive” of the pipeline project.
The proposed pipeline will run close to David Widmeyer’s property on Pious Ridge.
“It provides no value to Morgan County,” Widmeyer wrote. “It only provides potential profit to Mountaineer Gas. It devalues every property it runs across or near, forever. A seventy-five foot right of way would allow Mountaineer to sell part of that right of way in the future to other utilities and no one knows what may eventually pass through your property and neighborhood. The central and southern part of our state has been greatly damaged by this industry. We don’t want it or need it here. Stay out of Morgan County.”
More than 50 people met in Berkeley Springs last Friday to organize to defeat the pipeline. The organizers of that meeting have put up a Facebook page titled Eastern Panhandle Protectors to disseminate information about the fight against the pipeline.