Our Upcoming Mugging
I'm angry. More angry than
I ever imagined I could be.
I'm angry because we’ve been told that we will soon be viciously mugged, that there is
nothing we can do to prevent it, and that it will alter our lives
irrevocably. And we were told this by
the smug bully who is going to mug us!
This is hard to understand and impossible to accept. I fought in Vietnam for a country that honors
freedom and respects private property rights, Now I find myself subject to a
bully that tramples personal rights, and is supported by our elected
representatives!
I appreciate the strength our country enjoys due to our increasing
independence from foreign energy sources, often hostile to our way of
life. We do not oppose the pipeline per
se, but the aggressive and abusive way in which Dominion has handled this is
repugnant.
Other energy companies have built pipelines through a
collaborative commercial process, by approaching landowners with a request to
discuss possible routes across their property and offering fair compensation
for its use, even ongoing royalties. And
most others have made extensive use of existing rights of way, collocating to
minimize damage to private property, small businesses, communities and the
environment.
Dominion has done none of that.
We received a form letter that told us to sign below to agree to
Dominion's trespass, to survey our property, or they would sue us. And that we would lose because in the end
they'd use eminent domain to get what
they wanted no matter what we said.
Collocation? While other
pipelines use an average of 50% of existing easements, and as much as 100%,
Dominion has recently bragged that they've gone from 5% to 8% in response to
local political pressure in other places.
Political pressure? Senator
Kaine has actively lobbied for reconsideration of Dominion’s process and route selections, but Senator
Warner has ignored our many entreaties.
And the governor? McAuliffe has
fully stonewalled all citizen cries for assistance. And why not, since he's the happy beneficiary
of over $150,000 of political contributions by Dominion. Besides, he gets enough votes from the
Tidewater area; so why care about Nelson County?
Sandi and I have raised 3 strong children over our 48 years of
marriage, and today enjoy 8 wonderful grandchildren. We built our home in
Virginia to be near to them. Together we
built a family homestead in a beautiful, bucolic paradise that is Nelson
County. But Dominion will put its
pipeline across our private property, and will run so close to our family homes
that we've had to discuss leaving. How
can a responsible parent raise children in a home that is in the horrific pipeline
blast zone? In the case of our daughter Dawn,
the pipeline will run just 100 yards from her front door, so she's not just in
the blast zone, her house and family will be in the INCINERATION zone!
How does one even pretend to sell a house and disclose the risk
that requires we leave? Dominion will
not only destroy our homestead, but render it valueless! Wiped out!
Dawn's home will be worth scrap lumber at best!
Why am I angry? Because all
of this is a result of Dominion’s PURE GREED, their unrestrained drive to create a solely owned
550 mile swath of land from the oil fields to the coast, one that they will
never have to share. They do not care
whom they harm or how much, as long as they can add the rights to our
land to their corporate balance sheet.
This is not just legalized theft, it's a MUGGING! With war zone hazards!
Our hope today is that the Federal Energy Regulatory Authority, to
which Dominion has applied for permission to proceed, will independently
exercise its authority and require that Dominion prove that it has fully met
its requirements, conducted a complete examination of alternatives, including
collocation options, and fully considered the harm that this pipeline path will
cause. I can assure you that they have
not. I can also hope that our elected
officials will move to protect their constituents and endorse our arguments to
FERC, and reject the pressure to support this large donor.
In any case, we will not roll over. We will not agree to this brutal assault on
our personal property rights and our peaceful enjoyment of our homestead. I was raised to believe that you can't win by
surrendering your lunch to the schoolyard bully, and we will not. However, the
Marine Corps did not prepare me to know how to fight this huge multinational
petroleum firm and our own government that supports it. I am embarrassed, and humbled, to realize
that I may not be able to prevent this rape of our land and our freedoms. But I have to try.