In 1984, Jeannie and I were living in Adelphi MD a few miles from Washington DC. We lived in a yurt that I had built in my brothers backyard. I had been working a garden with a combination of fruits and vegetables. Jeannie was pregnant with our first child and was seeking a more rural land in which to raise our children. We had heard about Nelson county and went to visit a community there. It was stunning, such a passionate and green place. Unlike the Shenandoah Valley, there is less farm land and more wooded areas with an immense amount of useful and diverse flora. Nelson county is exquisite with ample rain and lush tall mountains and even some streams that run clear. We have owned a business called Edible Landscaping selling fruit trees with a focus on what can be grown in this area without pesticides. It has become like a living classroom and people come from all over the east coast to visit and learn.
Seeing YouTube videos with explosions and fires that have occured from mishaps with pipelines and knowing good friends who live in wooded areas where a pipeline is proposed is unthinkable to us. It would be a tragedy of immense measures and must not occur.
Seeing a large power company aggressively pursue a plan for profit without any empathy for the people or their land while disguising themselves as white knights is hypocritical. To rape our land and I repeat our land solely for profits with the intension of shipping most of it to China must not happen. Our main industry in this area of Nelson is tourism. The land would be destroyed in so many ways, the streams and fish would not ever be the same. It would further impact the climate. This area already must deal with acid rain from coal fired power plants up north.
We must learn to use the land wisely for it is beginning to affect our very survival. There are so many better altervatives. We all must remember that this land truely belongs to our childrens childrens children and we have a responsibility to use it wisely.
We must do all we can to see that this proposed pipeline does not ever happen.
Edible Landscape
http://ediblelandscaping.com